Daily prompt – Agree to Disagree

Immediately I thought of my sister. Ellen is two years older than me, and we love each other dearly. We’ve had many parallelisms (is that a word?) in our lives, but in so many ways we are different, and so there are a few things that we just don’t talk about.

We both married at 19, the first time, and without expecting it, we both had more than the usual amount of children – she had 5, and I, 7.  They are all grown now, but we did have our differences in raising them. I homeschooled, hers were public schooled. I was pretty bossy back then, tried to convince her to do things my way quite often. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have been so pushy. Each of our children have become awesome unique individuals, in spite of and because of their mothers.

We both divorced our children’s fathers after long marriages – mine 23 years, hers 29. We both married again, me within months, she took a little longer.  We both divorced after much drama, difficulty, and grief, around the same time. No arguments there.

She met Todd right after her divorce, and married him a year later,.  I dated a bit before I met Robert, my boyfriend, and there is no talk of marriage at this point. We are blissfully cohabitating, something that I never would have dreamed of doing in my younger days.

The biggest things we don’t talk about, just silently agree to disagree about, are religion and politics.  She goes to church every week, and is a conservative Republican. I quit going to church two years ago (although I have strong spiritual beliefs), and although I don’t affiliate with a political party, definitely have made a strong left shift in my voting.

She lives in Arkansas, I am in Texas. She has her own business, Ellen’s Airbrush. I work in a hospital and have only just begun to pursue artistic endeavors. My sister inspires me,  but I am glad we live 400 miles apart. We have lovely short visits, and know we are there for each other.