When teachers ask me for a fun fact in class I usually have two go-to answers. The first is that I have a fake belly button—a side effect of my appendicitis my sophomore year of high school—and the second is that I am the oldest of four girls. That’s right, I have three younger sisters. No boys allowed.

 

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When I tell people that I’m the oldest of four girls, usually their eyes widen and then they say something like “Oh, wow! How fun!” or, “Your poor father.” They always assumed that the four of us are best friends for life and would never have it any other way. Sometimes, it feels like this, but most of the time I run into the same issues with my sisters that I do with any of my “real life” friends.

 

The four of us each are pretty evenly spaced apart age-wise. I’m a junior in college, Julia is a freshman, Clare’s a senior in high school—the only semi-big jump is from Clare to Cecily, who’s a freshman in high school. Because of that semi-big jump, Julia, Clare and I have always been a pretty solid trio. It’s not that we don’t love Cecily; trust me, we do. She’s absolutely adorable. It’s more just that she’s not on our level of maturity yet (not that we’re all that mature). But seriously. Think about your eighth grade/freshman year of high school self vs. your senior year of high school self. A lot changes. Sure, I’m happy to take Cecily out to ice cream or to the reservoir to walk the dog or help her out with her pre-algebra. But there is no chance of Cecily being the one that I turn to in my times of crisis. Maybe someday I will, but right now six years feels like a very, very big difference.

 

Julia and I have shared a room since she was five and came crawling into my extra twin bed, terrified of lions in her closet. Sharing a room with Julia meant late night whispers about boys and about how unfair mom is and about what we’re doing with our lives. Sharing a room with Julia also meant that Clare was left out.

 

With groups of threes, it’s almost always a guarantee that someone gets left out. My mom always told me with a shake of her head, “three’s a crowd, four’s a party.” Somehow, regarding friendships, I always managed to put myself in that awkward middle place and it never ended up well. With a group of three, almost without exception, two people are in the “in” and one person is left in the “out.” I assumed, however, that for some reason Julia, Clare, and I were above that stupid rule. The truth is, you don’t realize that someone’s in the out if you’re in the in. Life looks too good from the in to worry about any problems.

 

Up until when I left for college, it had always been Julia and me in the in and Clare just slightly in the out. It wasn’t purposeful. Julia and I were actually pretty clueless. We never bothered to stop and think about whether or not Clare felt like the odd man out when we stayed up late talking or got ready for school together in the same bathroom. It was just habit. Then, when I left for school, things changed. The fearsome threesome had been broken up. Life at home had been turned upside down—the dynamic had been shifted. Julia was a senior, a tri-varsity athlete, on her way to becoming valedictorian, and had a boyfriend that still seemed perfect (we later found out this was not at all the case, but that is for a different story). She was queen of the high school. Clare was a junior, living her life struggling to get out of the shadow of her two older sisters, and Cecily was in eighth grade, still oblivious to the dramas of high school.

 

Sticking true to the story, I didn’t notice any obvious differences in dynamics when I returned home the summer after my freshman year. This was mainly because I was preoccupied with other events. I had major jaw reconstructive surgery in the beginning of June, and was pretty much out of commission for the entirety of the summer—either high on a lot of painkillers or way too focused on myself and my healing process than any issues that may have been occurring within the fearsome threesome.

 

It was really the summer after my sophomore year that I noticed things had changed. During my time 800 miles away in Michigan, I had lost my place in the “in” of the fearsome threesome and found myself a wary onlooker. I was the out. Julia and Clare, only one year apart in school, now had many of the same friends. I watched from my forlorn little seat in the out as they went to the same parties, same summer country concerts, and giggled together about cute boys that I had never even heard of. Deep down, I was aware I was being petty and ridiculous, but their actions felt purposeful and mean, as though had simply cut me out of their lives without ever looking back. I tried to talk to them about it, tried to tell them how I was feeling on the outskirts of their friendship and that I missed how things used to be. They just laughed, told me I was crazy, told me that I didn’t want to hang out with their 17 and 18 year old friends anyway. They were right. I didn’t want to hang out with their 17 and 18 year old friends—I was 20, after all—but I wanted to hang out with them. I just didn’t know how to say that without sounding like an obsessive, controlling, lonely older sister. I felt crazy.

 

I didn’t ever go to their parties, but I stayed up late so I could offer them a ride home. I couldn’t go to the country concerts—kids usually stop going after they leave for college—but I helped them sneak alcohol from my parents, making mixed drinks with the San Pellegrinos we always keep in the basement fridge. I didn’t know these boys they were talking about, but I felt myself morphing back into the days of high school drama as I intently listened to Julia and Clare’s retellings of how so-and-so let so-and-so copy their homework, and how the two of them have been way too friendly and so now so-and-so might hear about it and get really mad. I tried to care and to offer in my two cents, because I love my sisters. But I found it hard to care about gossip when I didn’t know or care about the other people involved. The common target we often came back to was our mother, but I always felt guilty for bashing her with them. Sure, she was our mom and we were teenagers (yes, I was 19 at the time) and teenagers are known for bashing their moms, but she didn’t really deserve it. I felt crazy and I felt like a bitch.

 

My mother is one of the most straightforward, brutally honest people that I have ever met. When I’m in a good mood with her, I’ll say that she often knows me better than I know myself, but when I’m mad it’s a bit more of an oh my god she doesn’t understand me how could she say that she knows that pushes my buttons. When she came up to me at some point in June and told me that I wasn’t acting like myself, my initial reaction was “God, mom, you don’t understand.” She seemed to know that this was coming, and just nodded and told me that she was going to yoga the next morning if I would like to join. I probably gave her some sassy response along the lines of, “Sure, and then after that we can grab a cup of coffee and talk about our deepest secrets,” but the next morning, I rolled out of bed, put on some leggings, and met her downstairs at 7am to go to yoga. (And, quite honestly, I could have gone for a cup of coffee.)

 

Julia and Clare hate yoga. They starred on the sports fields, running, kicking, and shooting. I starred on the stage, dancing, acting, and singing. They scoffed at yoga. They never even tried to understand the importance of simplicity. My mom understands. Through the years, she and I have joined forces in our "om"-ing and our mutual love for walking out of that stifling hot room absolutely dripping in sweat, but feeling like a million bucks. The yoga studio is our place to calm down; she likes to write in her head, mapping out her next chapter, and I like to think about what the heck I’m doing with my life. Neither of us really listens to the instructor calmly telling us to clear our minds and focus on our bodies.

 

In yoga class that morning, I had a few epiphanies. During the first downward dog, I realized how jealous and petty I had been acting. Clare had taken my place. I had to accept that. And I also had to accept that I wasn’t handling it well at all. As we rolled through a few vinyasas, I thought about how I had been almost trying to show off for them—acting like someone I’m not in order to gain their attention and admiration. How lame. I was acting totally lame. As sweat dripped down my face and I struggled to keep my breathing regular, I made a pact to myself. For the rest of the summer, I was going to work on being the person that makes me proud. If they didn’t like it, then oh well. I had plenty of other amazing friends. Like my mom.

 

I threw myself into painting and yoga and managing my time between the two graphic design internships I had taken on for the summer. I went for runs early in the morning and cooked amazing dinners with my parents. I tried to hide my sly grin when my dad would sneak a little extra vodka into my cup with a wink. One time my mom caught him and he simply replied that I had to keep my tolerance up for school. Amazingly, she just laughed and let it go.

 

One day when I was sitting at the kitchen table painting, Clare sat down and joined me with her own canvas. We sat, painting and talking about life, for three hours. It was the most we had hung out just the two of us that entire summer. And, crazily enough, there was no talking about how so-and-so was best friends on Snapchat with so-and so or who had kissed who at the latest country concert. Not long after that, Julia asked if she could join me at a yoga class. We woke up early, made ourselves eggs, drove together to the yoga studio, and were back at the house by 10 am, drenched in sweat and laughing at how Julia had confused her upward dog with her downward dog.

 

Slowly, the uncomfortable tension between the three of us began to disintegrate. The three of us went on walks, went out for breakfast, and stayed in together for movie nights. We didn’t really bash Mom as much, and they stopped talking about things I didn’t understand in front of me because I made it clear that I wasn’t interested. Instead, we talked about our lives. Julia was going to college at the end of August and was way more freaked out about it than she had let on before. Clare’s best friend had turned slightly psycho, which turned out to be the main reason she was hanging with Julia’s crowd. They asked for my advice on these things and were fascinated with what was hard and what was awesome about living in a place so far from home. I told them about how hard classes were, but how amazing it was to get an A, and they celebrated my victories with me. I told them about my failed “relationship” (if you can even call someone that you just “talked” to for five months an actual relationship), and they chided me for not ending things sooner than I had. Julia and Clare know me better than anyone. I love my mom, but she gets the surface details of my life. She knows when I’m acting weird and all about the problems that I choose to let her in on, but Julia and Clare get everything. It was silly of me to try to be someone else around the two of them and to expect them to just ignore it and, even crazier, to enjoy it.

 

Things aren’t perfect between the three of us. I still get frustrated when I feel in the dark about something and there’s still a part of me that’s jealous that they’re only one school year apart. I often wonder what it would be like to share friends with them and how much closer that would make us. Crazily enough, though, now that I know that we aren’t perfect and I’m not expecting us to be us to all be on our A game one thousand percent of the time, I’m a lot happier with where we’re at. Me leaving for college was our first big upset to our little family system, but I think we got through it pretty well. In some ways, Julia, Clare and I know each other better and like each other more now than we ever did in high school, and that makes me really excited for our future. Julia and I were actually just talking on the phone the other night about how much fun it would be to live together as the four of us (assuming Cecily reaches our level) in like ten years or so. Julia’s in a living situation right now that’s a little bit tricky because she likes her roommate, but there’s a lot of stuff she would feel weird about calling her out on. Living together, the four of us, would be, as Julia so eloquently put it, “the ideal situation. You know, living with three people that you absolutely love and that you can be straight-up honest with.”

 

My name’s Larkin Meehan. I have a fake bellybutton, I’m the oldest of four girls, and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.