My little brother is about to start college, and it’s great—it really is—and I’m excited for him, but… everything will change soon. There comes a time in every sibling relationship when each member is in a different life stage. I have two other siblings: My older sister has been knee-deep in the corporate world for two years now, one hand poised on the ladder rung and the other on our front door’s doorknob. My little sister, clad in her white polo and navy-blue skirt, surrounded by giggles at the back of the room and phones hidden under the desks, is in the thick of high school. Meanwhile, I’m in my last year of college, set to graduate by the end of the year, my future bright as it is murky. As 2026 expires, so will that era of my life.

A last everything

We’re 24, 22, 18, and 14 now—numbers that objectively aren’t that far apart from each other, and yet, put in a different context, are separated by light-years, with vastly different lifetimes wedged in between: work, college, high school.

We were also once 18, 16, 12, and 9. We huddled together on my parents’ bed, heads arched over one of the many boardgames stashed in our cupboards, our triumphant or indignant voices ringing out through the walls. We each found a spot to nestle into for an hour or two to watch the newest animated film on the big screen, a.k.a. Mom and Dad’s TV, the biggest at home.

We still do.

But someday, we’ll be 27, 25, 21, and 18. It’s unfathomable now, but in the blink of an eye, we’ll be 33, 31, 27, and 24.

One by one, we’ll all move out—and away. We’ll never be under the same roof again, never just be a room away, a few feet away. We’ll never be a few footsteps from bursting into someone’s room just to go on an impassioned rant for a few minutes. There will never be chaotic whisper-yells of “Are you asleep?“ heard through the walls. We’ll never thunder into a room together, phones clutched in our hands, just to play Pokémon Unite in the same space.

We’ll never be 18, 16, 12, and 9 again, or 24, 22, 18, and 14.

The little moments we took for granted—hotpot nights on our parents’ bed, sharing rooms, Netflix marathons, summer vacations—will slowly fade, yellow at the corners, until they become distant memories stored in a dusty cardboard box in the bodega.

There will be a last hotpot night. A last marathon. A last vacation.

The beauty of the ordinary

Change has always been a looming presence in our lives, an inevitable force that’s as scary as it is necessary.

I’ve spent thousands of seemingly ordinary moments with my siblings. Often, we didn’t know we were making memories until they were gone, until the moment was over. Because the truth is that they won’t last forever—people will never be in an exact age, in an exact dynamic, forever. I hold on to that “someday” like a blade in my hand.

Yet, even though growing up changes things, it doesn’t have to mean growing apart. Maybe it just means learning to move with the change, and changing alongside it. Maybe it means living in new memories, not really surrendering the old ones but keeping them in a special place in your heart. Somewhere between growing up and letting go.

We can’t live in a memory, just like we can’t stay stuck in a single moment.

But while I’m here, I choose to bask in the ordinaryness of everything: the quiet before the storm, the moment that’s passing, because maybe it’s already passed us by, and maybe we’ll never get it back, but you never know when it might be the last.

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