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For 20 years, I lived hundreds of miles away from my mom and sister. Then, I bought the house next door.

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Growing up, I wanted to live in every city my family visited on vacation. As an adult, I started to work through that list.

After college in Virginia, I moved to DC, went to grad school in Wisconsin, and then followed jobs to Denver and New York. I loved city life, and leaving never crossed my mind.

That changed when my father died. Worried about my 75-year-old mom living alone in Louisville and struggling with grief, I felt guilty about not living closer. For the first time, I questioned whether living so far away was what I really wanted.

When my sister announced she was moving back to Louisville in 2019, I got a bad case of FOMO. After a phone call from her and mom about the best pea pesto they’d ever had at a new local Italian spot, I knew it was time.

Later that year, I left my job, sold everything that wouldn’t fit into a rented minivan, and returned to the Bluegrass State. Once in Louisville, we went from separate lives to an interdependent existence.

When my sister bought a bungalow 20 minutes away from my mom, I moved in with her so we could both save money. Then the pandemic hit. After quarantining for a year, her house felt cramped, so I bought the place next door.

This time, it was my mom’s turn to have FOMO. Tired of missing out on impromptu karaoke nights and needing some help around the house, she moved three blocks away.

Old family dynamics reemerged amid proximity and health scares

The last time we were this geographically close, my sister and I were in high school. Our teenage bickering over who was hogging the phone leveled up, and now we were going rounds over how to load the dishwasher.

When we found ourselves in an absurd screaming match about the “right way” to make dinner, we realized we needed professional help.

In therapy, we looked at our past roles in the family system and evaluated them against how we each had grown since then. We also learned to communicate our needs more clearly and recognize when we were listening versus making assumptions.

Spending an hour a week talking about our feelings was out of our comfort zone, but it helped us better understand each other so that we could stop arguing and start enjoying each other’s company.

Now we spend that energy dominating trivia night together, instead of getting the last word.


Three women sitting in front of wood panels outside wearing winter jackets

My sister, mom, and I share resources and split some bills since we live in the same neighborhood. 

Sydney McClure



A few years ago, a small health scare also shifted our dynamic.

My mom was experiencing some concerning health symptoms, but was dismissing them because her recent physical had been normal.

However, as the weeks dragged on without improvement, we urged my mother to see the doctor and to let my sister, who’s a nurse, join her.

At first, Mom felt we were being patronizing, but a few months in, she got worried too and let my sister accompany her to an appointment.

With my sister in the room to help fill in gaps and use her medical background to ask the right questions, doctors were able to diagnose and manage my mom’s condition.

I worry it would’ve gone untreated for much longer if we hadn’t lived close enough to see what was happening firsthand. I’m also glad she didn’t have to go through that health scare alone and that we were able to support her.

Despite the challenges, living in the same neighborhood has been worth it


Three women smiling in a photo

Moving closer made us financially interdependent in both good and bad ways 

Sydney McClure



Being a short walk away has allowed us to pool resources in ways that would be impossible if we lived in different states.

The three of us share a Peloton bike and tread. We also exchange household items like a lawnmower or kitchen gadgets.

And then there’s Costco — after living alone most of my adult life, I finally can enjoy all the glory of bulk shopping. Being able to take advantage of economies of scale has been financially beneficial for us all.

At the same time, there are drawbacks. For instance, I helped my mom set up and manage online bill pay. Although she wanted my help, once we started to set up online accounts, my mom found it invasive that I had visibility into her finances.

When I suggested that she use autopay, she felt I was overstepping and telling her how to manage her money. After a long conversation, we identified boundaries that would make the process better.

Once we were on the same page, paying bills wasn’t fraught; it was the impetus for us to have dinner and movie nights.

All in all, evolving roles, difficult conversations, and the minutiae of daily life ultimately strengthened our relationships. Living so close also improved our daily lives in a myriad of tiny ways.

I wouldn’t trade it for anything.




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Lauren Crosby

My sister and I are not best friends. Still, she knows me better than anyone.

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I recently asked my mom what my younger sister, Hannah, and I were like together when we were little girls. “You played parallel to each other,” she told me.

This didn’t come as a surprise, because as a teenager, I remember it exactly this way. Living parallel lives together as sisters.

It was only ever the two of us, and with our ages so close together — I’m not even two years older — you might think we were inseparable. It just wasn’t how it was.

We were so different

We were night and day different then. I woke early; she woke late. I was out with groups of friends at every opportunity; she had a couple of close friends she was content to see occasionally. I was meticulously tidy; she was unabashedly quite messy (we shared a room, so this posed problems).


Girls smiling for photo

The author and her sister are only a few years apart.

Courtesy of the author



The list of differences was endless, but one thing we both had in common was that we could wind each other up as no one else could.

We also both liked the series “Pride and Prejudice.” Many afternoons were set aside binging the Bennet sisters’ woven-tight relationship. I remember thinking my sister and I weren’t like the Bennets at all. They depended on each other in a way Hannah and I didn’t.

When we went our separate ways in college, I rarely contacted her, and she rarely contacted me. Occasionally, we’d send each other a text, but other than that, we just saw each other briefly on the weekend at home or during the holidays.

I moved to the UK

Once we finished college, I moved to the UK to marry a Welsh man, and later settled here to raise my family.

It was around this time that social media began to take off.

I remember watching videos, reading articles, and flicking through pictures of sisters on Facebook who were what I’d describe as “bosom friends,” thinking I wish I had the same with Hannah.

It was also during these early years in Wales that I felt desperately lonely. I craved deep, abiding female friendship, and thought that if only Hannah and I were closer friends, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so lonely.


Sisters smiling for photo

The author and her sister lived parallel lives during college.

Courtesy of the author



If we texted and phoned every day, sharing our deepest, darkest secrets which no one else knew, and lived in each other’s pockets, that would fill the friendship void.

I imagined sisters all around the world had this kind of intimate friendship, and we were just missing out. Where had we gone wrong? How did we miss out on what sisters everywhere were experiencing?

And then I hit my 30s.

My sister was there for me

During this decade, there have been some significant events in my life that have nearly broken me. And one of the few people who was there throughout was Hannah.

Hannah checked in via text consistently. She came and visited from the US, eventually moving to London for work three years ago. Now, we see each other four to five times a year. She’s taken phone calls where I have just cried.

She shows up, over and over again.

Not just for me, but for my three boys. Being involved in their lives is of utmost importance to her, and because we don’t have much family around, of utmost importance to me too.

Although I have friends, I have no friend who is quite like my sister.

We still aren’t what I would consider stay-up-into-the-night-talking-endlessly friends, and are still completely opposite in so many ways, but I’ve come to realize that my sister really is the closest female friendship I have.

She knows my history in full. I know hers. We’ve walked — even if in parallel — with each other since childhood. No one else knows her as I do, and no one knows me as she does. If something were to happen to my husband and me, it is Hannah I would trust more than anyone with my children. We can fall out briefly, but never forever. She’ll always be there for me, and I’ll always be there for her. We’re bound together.

Sisterhood isn’t a one-size-fits-all. Each of our sister bonds is unique and doesn’t have to look like the others. It was only once I accepted and believed this that I could fully appreciate the eternal relationship I have with my sister.

Hannah and I still live parallel lives. We certainly aren’t the Bennet sisters, or giddy besties who do every single thing together. But neither of us is going anywhere. Sisters forever.




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