Gained: New Friends. Lost: One Sister

When I came to college, I only had to move an hour away. My home was just a short drive to my dorm room. However, even that small distance gave me the room I needed to grow. I've changed a lot since my first day on campus.

Before coming here, I was a little more reserved and definitely less outgoing. After getting into the swing of things at the university, I met a lot of people and was able to put myself out there a little more. I've definitely become, as many would say, a "social whore". I text and facebook my friends like it's a full time job. The social aspect of my life has began to strongly outweigh the academic aspect, something that I would have never let happen in high school.

Partying is another part of college that I've began to embrace. I love going out with my friends and just having a good time. It's my way to unwind after a stressful week of frantically trying to get everything done. This is one of the biggest changes that I have experienced. Before entering college, I was against drinking altogether. I never went to parties, and I refused to drink at all. Now, things are a little different. I enjoy the partying, as well as the drinking, that college makes so easily accessible.

As a result of many of these changes, I lost touch with my younger sister. She's only two years younger than me, and we had been peas in a pod for the last three years. We did most of the same activities in high school, including bowling, marching band, and tutoring French. Everyone knew us as "Big Sister" and "Little Sister". It was so hard leaving her when I packed my things for college. We cried a lot, and talked to each other very frequently for the first few weeks.

However, after a couple months passed, our chats grew further and further apart. Now, we only talk when I go home to visit. Why? She claims that I'm not the same person who left for the university nine months ago, and she had trouble accepting that. I feel abandoned by her, like she doesn't care about me anymore. Because I am more outgoing, and more social than I was before, I'm not worthy of her attention. She has not been the supportive sister that I thought she would be for me.

It's funny how I finally have the social life that I had always wanted in high school, and in the process of getting it, have lost the person I was closest to. My parents always told me to hold close to my sister, because she and I will be friends longer than anyone else we have ever met.

I feel like things will eventually work out between us. Right now, it feels like the kind of interaction two business partners would engage in; there is no depth to our conversations. When I go back to visit home, there is definitely a difference in the way we interact with each other. My bet is that when she ventures off to college, she will encounter very similar situations and begin to understand the other side of the story a little better.

Now, there's nothing I can do to salvage our relationship until she can learn to accept me for who I am. But I want my real sister back!