Sister

As times change, many things become subjective. Right and wrong are no longer defined, but rather become different relating to circumstance. As shades of gray invade our set-in-stone world, people become their own and take back self. With changing perceptions and increasing individualisms, it becomes hard to put definite meanings on words. “Family” has become one of these words with indefinite meanings, and I believe that the family I live in blends with a few shades of gray.

When someone loves another person so much, they cease to exist as their self or in the same sense as they had. This is a belief that I firmly hold and I apply it to my relationship with a special person named Jade Rachel. The belief that love bends relationships and changes who we are can be associated with the definition of “family”. Does care for a person dictate their relationship towards another? And if so, does the relationship extend as far as being related to one another? I believe Jade to be my true sister, perhaps more-so than the sister birthed in my relation. If perception is reality, then who is fit to define what reality holds in store pour moi?

I first met Jade when we were in the seventh grade, we would have been twelve years old and living in Okinawa, Japan. I had known of her the year before, but in the seventh grade we ended up riding the same bus. For some reason, I end up either hating or really disliking people when I first meet them; the people I dislike the most end up becoming the closest for me. I cannot say that Jade annoyed me more than everybody, but I can say that she annoyed me more than most. I guess she was interested by me, though, because she was constantly popping her head over the seats around me to talk or ask to use my CD player.

Quickly after we actually became friends, we became very close. Jade and I spent so much time together that we sounded alike; we even walked alike and had a stance like one another. People would confuse our names and always said how similar we were. We came up with aliases and signed into the school library as sisters using the same last name. We did so much together that it would have been hard to picture us being as separates.

After I became friends with Jade, she began to act differently towards her parents. I conceive this to be around the time that she realized that they didn’t treat her properly. They began associating her actions with me and labeled me a “bad influence”. They began looking for ways to discredit our friendship or to say that I was a bad person, even though I was always polite towards them.

Only three years after Jade and I had become friends, I had to move. I’m sure it was a relief to her parents that I was going. To me, though, it was depressing to leave and only in the recent years have I been able to actually leave. After moving, we starting using the Internet to keep in touch and sometimes had phone conversations. We became involved in Internet activities together: blogging, keeping websites, things like that. We even co-ran a graphic contest website together, on it visitors could submit various types of graphics for awards; Jade and I selected the winners and created the awards and contests.

Problems with Jade’s parents and family became worse over time. Her birth-mother’s unfair treatment of her was upsetting and tore the family apart. I think at this time she turned to me as the only true family that existed for her. It became a horrible situation when her parents refused to even acknowledge our relationship with one another and wouldn’t even allow me to visit her. I don’t even think they liked the fact that I sent her a Christmas present last year. As a display of the emotions that we have felt over the past years apart, Jade created a graphic dissolve show that depicted us separated. Eventually problems with Jade’s birth-family escalated so badly that it prompted her to leave home and move to another state entirely.

Currently, Jade is married and lives with her husband, Nate, and his family. Nate has accepted the fact that he and I are now related to one another and he understands Jade and my ideas on family. Jade and I now talk nearly everyday using either the Internet or the phone. I must admit that I have not seen Jade in six years, but our relationship could not be stronger. We consider ourselves to be sisters stronger than those birthed in relation and I do not believe that any one person could split us up. Jade’s expecting a child and it will be born into a family related to both of us, as will my future children. Additionally, someday I hope to convince my birth-father to adopt Jade as his own daughter, discounting mockery and criticisms of our current situation.

How is any of this possible? If society impacts us all, then how exactly has society impacted the perceptions of people enough to change their definitions of a very straight-forward relationship? People are always changing, times change us all. With everything from fashion to entertainment – acceptability of concepts change.

I believe that increasingly people feel more of a need to bend the world to fit around them. We perceive things in new ways and shape ourselves to be what we want to. We decide who we are by changing our names, our appearance, and even our gender. The definitions of right and wrong have changed drastically over time. Religious people now interpret their religions differently and even create their own. Debates over the word “murder” consistently weigh on the minds of the masses.

Definitions of words are so sketchy that they affect the legal world. Things like warranties and contracts require set definitions that are non-debatable. Jury court trials define “not guilty” as meaning “possibly guilty, but with some reasonable doubt”, and even that definition can be broken down into a question of reasonability.

If so many aspects of our lives are subjective, then it should be no wonder that Jade and I have formed our own sisterly bond. And if all judgments and realities are merely perspectives, then who is to say that we’re not sisters? Certainly not any one person in existence.