How Little Women Relates to My Life, Part the Second

I know that I just wrote a huge-monster-sized post about how I'm über-excited about how I actually have dreams to work towards. 

Bear with me, this will be another long post. 

But it's aching to get out of my heart, so I need to write. 

Remember how I decided that I am Jo? 

Well, there's another reason why. 

Jo has three sisters. She loves her sisters very much and would do anything for them. Her dreams are based upon their happiness. In fact, it's hard for Jo when they all start going their separate ways. Her sisters are her world. 

Aren't they so cute?

I have three sisters, too. And I would do anything for them.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of all four of us together. I have lots with Sarah and Katy (the ones on missions right now), but none with all four of us together. Problem. We will have to fix that. Someday. [Erika, I promise that I love you, too. I just can't find a picture with all four of us together.]

For right now, I'll just post this. It's from this summer when I got home from my mission. We're all here and we all look genuinely happy.

Yay! Happy family. Love them. 

But. The point is that like Jo, I love my family. I love my siblings. I love my sisters. They are my life. And I want them to be happy. 

It's bittersweet watching us all grow up and go our separate ways, even though they are all good, wonderful ways to go. I mean, two of my sisters are on missions right now. They are incredible and brave. It's not easy giving them up, but I am glad they have chosen to serve the Lord. 

You know that feeling you get when you realize that nothing is going to be the same? Yeah. Nothing will be the same. We're growing up. We're forging our own lives. We're becoming the women we need to be. 

Even though these are wonderful things, it's still not easy. I miss them. I miss them an awful lot. 

So recently, another song from Little Women which has resonated with me is "Fire Within Me." Jo sings it after Beth's death, and it describes her anguish at how things haven't turned out the way she had hoped, and then how she realizes that her sisters are and always will be a part of her. 

Because there are no good Youtube videos/recordings of this song (they are all high school students singing for their school plays. No offense to high school thespians, but they are not Sutton Foster), I'm just going to put down the lyrics. They are absolutely beautiful, and describe my feelings pretty accurately: 

"How do I go on?
Just an empty room
All I have are memories
I need a task to do
Someone give me a task to do
I need a....

I thought that somehow we would always have forever
I thought the promises we made would have a different end
I thought the love we shared would keep us as we were
It was the fire within me

We dreamed and plotted with abandon in this attic
When we were gathered here the room became our citadel
We were amazing then my sisters and I
They were the fire within me

In this room I knew we were alive
Nothing was too painful to survive
We faced the world together
The four of us forever side by side
Everything I promised was for them
I was theirs no matter where or when
How can that be lost forever
How when I gave everything with all my heart?

[Jo starts writing about her sisters and then has an epiphany:]

Everything I promised them is here
All of us we used to be
We will always have each other
They will always be the fire in my heart
Here I go, and there's no turning back
My great adventure has begun
I may be small
But I've got giant plans
To shine as brightly as the sun
Here in all the smallest details of the past
Here in this attic suddenly life is something vast
The four of us forever here at last
As unexpected as can be
Astonishing." 

Yes, things are different. But we will always have each other (no matter how cliche that sounds). If we want it, we will always be there for each other and be each other's best friends.

I know this is extremely sappy.  

But it's the truth. There is power in sisterhood. And I'm so grateful that I have the best sisters anyone could ask for.