A Role Model

“Hey Jennifer! Guess what? Today I went shopping with Tutu and…” Courtney started talking and I started ignoring. All her life Courtney had always been left out and ignored by Allison, my other sister, and I. It’s not that we didn’t like her, it was just that she was so much younger and immature than Allison and I. Plus, Courtney’s story had the potential of lasting an hour.

“…Jennifer…Jennifer…JENNIFER!! ARE YOU LISTENING??” I was torn away from the show I was watching and brought back to Courtney World.
“Yep,” I replied, trying to keep her from starting over.
“So,” she asked, “do you want to see what I got?”
“Sure. Why not,” I replied unenthusiastically. She sprinted down stairs to grab the goods. She brought in two bags, one from GAP and another from the soccer store. She carefully took the clothes out of the GAP bag one by one. As I saw her taking them out, I noticed that the clothes looked exactly like the ones that I bought the day before. They were the same style, the same color, everything.
“Do you like it?” she asked a little sheepishly. Then it hit me. She really cared about what I thought of her. She wanted to be like me.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I really do.” She then showed me what she got the soccer store and it was a bunch of clothes just like what Allison always wears. I realized that when Courtney was annoying us, she was just trying to be like us.
After she was done showing me her clothes, I thought about all of the things that she had done to try and be like me before. She wanted to do everything I did. Courtney wanted to be in on all the inside jokes that Allison and I had. She even acted more mature around me than when she was with her friends. How could I be so stupid? She probably cared more than anyone else what I thought of her, and most of the time I just ignored her. It would seem like just an ordinary conversation to anyone else, but that day, I realized that I was someone more than just Jennifer , I was a role model for my little sister.