I know we've chatted a dozen times about My Great Love for my sister, over coffee, in the midst of this space.

There are several reasons for that, but we'll narrow it down to two today:

1. She's awesome (and I love her more than all the drops in all the oceans).

2. The width and breadth of our history is so rich and ripe with heartache (etccc.) that no one else in the world fully understands the layers of our past or how they've come together to form the people we are today. Let's just say "It's complicated" and keep it at that.

Though we lived together all through university and graduated on the same spring night, the following years have found us in many different (and often opposite) corners of the world.

People, this is hard for the heart.

From D.C. to Thailand, from Chicago, Texas, Hawaii and beyond we've seen each other as much as humanly possible through the years and of course it's still not enough.

Thankfully, the past couple of years, we've taken a long weekend together in Atlanta in July to celebrate her birth. Catherine's arrival all those years ago was the very best thing that could have happened to me, though as an usurped older sibling, I had little idea just how much I would need her through the ensuing years.

So party in Atlanta it is.

I'm grateful for my sister-for the hard conversations and the heart conversations. I'm thankful for someone who has seen me in a myriad of seasons, who loved me when I was unlovable and who believed in me far more than I ever believed in myself.

I'm grateful to know someone so incredibly generous, hilarious, kind, thoughtful, giving, witty, talented and brilliant.

Catherine Elizabeth-you are a wonder. I'm proud of you, I adore you, I'm so happy I get to call you MY sister.

Until we hug again.

xo.