Good things come in threes

They say all good things come in threes. I believe this is specially the case when it comes to siblings. My mom is the middle of three sisters, my father was the baby of three brothers, and I, like my dad am the baby, but of three sisters. I have always sorry for lone children who can only recollect on outings with their parents and maybe a few crazy extended family members. There are those who have only one sibling, and they usually experience a tight bond with each other. Then there are those who have many siblings, like my cousins Piotrek, Adrian, Marcin, Oktawian, Sandro, and Daria. From what I've seen they often pair off, or they don't form any bonds with each other at all. But those who are three--we have something special.

I didn't always know this. When I was in elementary school and both of my sisters were going through those troublesome teenage years, I felt a little bit left out. My best friend at the time was Ashley and she had one sibling, a twin sister named Nicole. Feeling jealous, I would often try to take Nicole's place, figuring that since we both had blonde hair and almost the same name, it would really work out. I used to make Ashley dress up in matching clothes and we'd both wear pony-tails, and then we'd go to the mall and walk about hand in hand, telling everybody passing by, "We're twins!" Unfortunately for me, Ashley would only play along with the charade for about ten minutes, since she hated being a real twin, much less being my fake twin. Instead I resorted to watching Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movies, begging my parents to adopt a little girl that looked just like me. Sad, I know.

When was turned 13, my parents and I moved up to North Carolina, leaving my sisters Dominika and Marta to fend for themselves back in South Carolina as college students. Strangely, this is when I first started to really bond with my real sisters. Missing both them and the city, my parents would drive me down to visit them a few times a month, where I would alternate between both of their places.

Dominika was living downtown near the university, where she was a double major in business and marketing, as well as the class president. When she wasn't studying, she was working at one of her two jobs, practicing for her ballet shows, painting, making projects, or working out. She lived in a bellman-guarded high-rise and her apartment was always pristine. When she would leave me alone it was understood that I could only play certain games on her computer, watch certain movies on the television, and that under no condition could I rummage through her things. For fun, she would take me to her Polish and Norwegian friends' houses so that they could drink wine and eat cheese while discussing politics, while I would stare at the ceiling sipping on juice. Sometimes she took me with her to work at The Limited, and I would stand around and watch her sell things. Sometimes she would even buy clothes for me with her discount; usually, those clothes were the same black and white sweaters and khaki pants she had, only one size smaller.

Marta lived across town, but she may as well lived on the other side of the world. She definitely suffered from the "middle-child syndrome" and was the complete opposite of my oldest sister. When she went to class, or rather, when she skipped class to do better things, she would light an incense in her messy apartment and leave me be. Looking through her stuff, I always found interesting things like birth control, small white papers for wrapping things in, a small box where she kept some sort of plant seeds (for gardening, I presumed), letters from ex-boyfriends, dead-head t-shirts, and books about anarchsim. For fun, she would dress me up in a loose-fitting blouse, a flowing hippie skirt and Birkenstocks, and take me to the downtown bars. As we danced around with her friends to jam bands, they all egged me on while I downed my first liquor shots. At 13, it was Marta who welcomed me to my teenage years with a bang.

My first years as a teenager only marked the beginning of my developing relationships with my already adult sisters, who are today helping me to become an adult. I'm glad that I have both of them to learn from, rather than from only one or too many siblings. Dominika and Marta are like yin and yang for me, offering me two extreme perspectives on everything. From Dominika, I realized that I love to study, I'm a hard worker, and I like mellow and depressing music like Tori Amos and Sigur Ros. I enjoy drinking wine and eating cheese with international friends while being pretentious as hell. From Marta I learned how to relax and enjoy life with the cheapest beer I can find, the beautiful music of Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, and the smell of sandalwood incense. Most importantly, I've learned from her the ability to say "live and let live" when I'm getting too high-strung. And now that I have learned what I can from both of them, as well as what I've learned on my own, we can all grow up together and share what we know, creating the perfect balance.