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"This might sound clich&amp;amp;eacute, but my two sisters are my best friends. Sure, we fight sometimes, know exactly which buttons to push, and can get on each other's last nerves, but we're also the closest of confidants, each other's biggest fans, and the world's most reliable friends. My relationship with my sisters has taken so many turns over the course of our young adulthood\u2014sometimes good, sometimes bad\u2014but when I look back to a time that both defined and strengthened our relationship (or rather, friendship), nothing comes close to those years when I was away at college.\n\nAfter graduating high school, we all think we're prepared for the next four glorified years of freedom; my own notion was a strange mix of Old School and Legally Blonde. I knew the work would be difficult, but I had attended an academically-rigorous high school and felt confident about managing my course load. What college counselors and guidebooks fail to tell us, however, is that balancing reading assignments is only half the battle\u2014you also need to work hard at making new friends. I quickly learned that survival depended on finding people who would become my family away from home, because when you're thousands of miles away from the people you're actually related to, it's necessary to build a strong network of people you can rely on. These new friends will eat every meal with you, sit in the library and stress out with you, experience broken hearts with you, and be there to celebrate successes with you. The tough part, at least for me, was remembering that while making these new friends was important, they weren't a replacement for my sisters.\n\nI remember so clearly the recurring fight we had while I was first away at college. One of my sisters would call me, and I would \"forget\" to call her back. I was in midterms, or pulling an all-nighter, or just out with friends; there was always an excuse to justify not promptly returning a message. Weeks could go by because I was too lazy to explain everything that was going on in my college life. There was just too much they wouldn't understand\u2014couldn't understand\u2014because I was here and they weren't and it felt like a waste of time to explain. Not surprisingly, this attitude damaged our relationship and pushed us apart.\n\nWhat I didn't know then is just how formative those first few years living away from home really are. Suddenly you're confronted with adult decisions that your parents used to make for you. You discover little things about yourself, like how you're more of a morning person than you thought, and even bigger things, like what career you want to explore post-college. If you don't include your sisters during this special time when so much change is taking place, how can you expect them to understand the new and improved adult \"you\" when those four years end?\n\nIt's inevitable that the details of your lives will get lost when you're so far apart, not seeing each other every day like you did at home\u2014and that's OK\u2014but there are ways to minimize the long-term impact it can have on such valuable relationships. Those fights with my sisters? They could have been easily avoided had I simply sent a quick email or text to set up a better time to chat. Getting a weekly Skype date on the agenda, even if it was just for a five-minute conversation, made a huge difference for us. I grew up with weekly Friday night dinners, so I always knew that was the best time to reach my sisters together while I was away. And remember: Your sisters are resources for advice. They might not know exactly what you're experiencing day-to-day, but they get you better than anyone else and will be able to give the kind of sage wisdom that sounds a little like a parent, but more like a friend.\n\nSibling visits help, too. I'll never forget the pride I felt when introducing my two sisters to all my friends for the first time. I was so excited to show off my school's beautiful campus, my dorm room, and my favorite study spots. The trip became a perfect way for my sisters to better understand what I did on a daily basis, who my pals were, and what we did during our free time. Over the course of four years, those visits helped my sisters relate to the new me, and served as windows into the identity I was developing independent of our family. They learned little things about my college life that strengthened our relationship; I could talk to them about my social life because they now knew the friends who had become my college family.\n\nBut relationships\u2014especially the sisterly kind\u2014are never one-sided. In order to reconcile my independence with my role as a sister, I also needed to be involved in their lives whenever possible. Going home for holidays was the perfect opportunity for quality sister time, but it wasn't always easy. I had such limited time to be with my family and enjoy my vacation that bonding time didn't always take precedence. It took a few tries and several mistakes before I really began understanding (and appreciating) they were experiencing different, but nonetheless transformative, moments in their own lives. I started going with my sisters and their friends to dinners and concerts. It gave me a sense of how they were developing their own lives while I was away, and made me realize that if I wanted to maintain the strong relationship we used to have, I needed to be less self-involved.\n\nIt's been almost five years since I graduated from college. I still live across the country from my older sister, though in the past year my younger sister moved to New York to become my roommate, and the three of us have never been closer. I've certainly learned that while it's important to build a family who will support you along the exciting four-year journey that is college, no family is quite like your own."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/moving-away-from-sisters>