I’m daughter three out of five, so naturally, hand-me-downs were a regular part of my life growing up. From the crib I slept in, to my ballet leotards, to the first car I drove- none of it was intended for me, yet they have played a part in who I have become today. So many parts of my life, I have inherited from my family. I want to share with you, what has been shared with me.

Ballet Leotards and Swing Sets

I probably would have never taken ballet if my older sisters didn’t do it first, that was half of the appeal. As I got older, my sister became my ballet teacher. She would drive me to class in our mother’s old red Mazda, and we would practice barre exercises, before she taught me new choreography that she learned from her previous classes. I was of course, wearing one of her old leotards and she would help straighten my leg extensions with one of my father’s yard sticks. After a few months of practice, she hosted a dance recital that consisted of me doing just one performance and the audience being just my family. It wasn’t new, they had seen me practicing at home and watched my sister work on the choreography, but they still showed up and clapped proudly at the end and presented me with flowers.

And when I decided to perform my routine at the school talent show, my father was able to take off work to sit several hours, to watch my two minute routine (that he had already seen countless times). My father took off work for the rest of the afternoon, so I got to go home early and play on the swing set my younger sister got for her birthday. These memories that I am still fond of years later, wouldn’t feel quite the same without every piece and moment I borrowed from another.

A Borrowed Piano and Steering Wheels

I started taking piano lessons once a week because my older sister took piano lessons once a week, and my younger sister followed suit. Then we all came home, and took turns practicing our lessons on a borrowed piano in the living room. None of us were marvelous at playing, but my mother and father never seemed to mind the extra noise as they checked our homework or worked on dinner. My sister did mind however, when I would steal her sheet music and learn her song instead of mine. I was far more interested in playing The Sleeping Beauty Waltz than I was playing Hot Cross Buns. I don’t think I cared so much about the song itself, but I loved having something I shared with my sister- although I know it bothered her endlessly. Years later, I still find my fingers fidgeting away and playing The Sleeping Beauty Waltz on a table top. Sheet music that was never intended for me, forever etched onto my finger tips, drumming into the steering wheel, just as my father does as he drives.

The Bunk Beds

I think my favorite thing I’ve ever shared has been a set of built-in bunk beds my father built for me and my younger sister. Painted white and paired with lime green walls, they were magnificent. Truly, they had built-in outlets, a little shelf space for pillows or other knick-knacks, and each bed had a sconce with a light switch placed exactly by your hand- easy to flick off before bed. The bunk beds had stairs instead of a ladder, pretty wooden steps, even had a landing at the top and they were lit with beautiful floral lights (including a light switch at the bottom and the top!). Beds made so thoughtfully, we all wanted a turn.

At some point before middle school, my older sisters moved into the bunk beds and me and my younger sister were finally able to have our own rooms. When I entered high school, I moved back to the bunk beds (because the room had an en suite bathroom and walk-in closet), and shared them with my older sister when she came back from college to visit. I left them for the last time when I was a junior in high school, because my youngest sister needed a bigger room for more toys. 5 girls, who have all slept on both the top and bottom bunk over the course of a decade. These bunk beds that were actually intended for me to use, went on to be loved by all of us as we grew up.

Over the years, the room changed- got rid of the play kitchen and moved in a TV, swapped the lime green paint for lavender- later painted pink and then back to lavender- but one thing was constant: we somehow always ended up in that room together squeezing onto one of the twin sized mattresses. We loved those bunk beds, but absolutely hated changing the sheets.

Poppy’s House

The house I currently live in, on the same plot of land as my family, was originally built by my great-grandfather, Poppy. My grandmother was raised here with her sisters and brother, and my mom spent plenty of time here with her grandparents and family. Poppy later sold the next door plot to my mother, where my parents built my childhood home, and a few years after that my grandparents bought the plot behind and built their home.

After my great-grandfather’s passing, they had to sell his house, but bought it back after 15 years. My father, with the help of my grandparents, painstakingly renovated and refurbished the dying home for my oldest sister to move in to. Poppy’s house is what we still call it today. Well, she got married, and had a baby. And before we knew it, this little house ran out of space for a growing family. So, she bought the plot of land next to my grandparents, and built her very own house. Five generations have lived in this house, and now I am living here. Sleeping within the same walls originally intended for my grandmother to be raised in.

I sit at the dining table, that my mother bought, and look at my wall. There, in a frame, sits the original wallpaper my great-grandmother picked out for the house. I sleep in a room my older sister painted periwinkle and green, with art hanging on the walls that was given to me by either my sisters or grandmother, the room furnished with a dresser and nightstand set my father inherited from somewhere.

My Dishes, My Initials, My Liver

The sugar I put in my tea lives in a sugar bowl that once sat inside my mother’s hutch (which was right next to the borrowed piano). I eat off pink plates my sister purchased, and I lounge on a couch that I grew up taking naps on. My fridge is decorate with little art pieces made by my youngest sister and full of leftover food made by my mother or grandmother. All our names start with ‘M’, all my sisters, my mother, my grandmother, even my great-grandmother. And my initials, MBR, I share with my sisters. It seems like every part of my daily life, I have inherited from another.

From my habits, sleeping in too late and pacing while I talk on the phone, to my hobbies, music and dancing, to my career, designing buildings, even the very way I speak, too loud and always full of emotion, to how I lead my life with my heart full of love- just like both of my parents. None of it came solely from me. I exist as a product of every decision and experience and feeling that shaped my family. I look like my grandmother, I’m named after my mother (who is named after one of my grandmother’s sisters), I think like my father, I dance like my sister, I hear music like my sister, I shop like one of my grandmother’s sisters (who I also share a genetic liver disease with), I laugh like my sister, I make jokes like my sister- these are just a few things I can think of.

At one point in my life, this realization would’ve made me upset. I so badly wanted to be “different” or “unique”, but now I can’t help but relish in the fact that I am not unique, at least in the way we often think. How lucky I am to have been changed by love. How lucky I am to share so much with those that have truly given me everything, from the clothes on my back, to the very house I sit writing this in.

Family Dinner

As I’ve gotten older, I have realized how lucky and rare it is for every aspect of your life to be a family affair. To have family dinner with your sisters who are 30, 27, 19, and 9, along with your parents, grandparents, niece and nephew, brothers-in-law, fiancé, and sometimes your friends too, this is something so special in my life but is not something out of the ordinary. To text one another each and every day, even if it is just something stupid and benign, like your sister reporting that she forgot to put her passport back in its assigned location.

I am beyond lucky and blessed to have a family that loves me so dearly. So much love has been poured into every crevice of my life, that I’m nearly bursting at the seams. And that is exactly why I believe that love is the greatest gift of this life. The very act of loving is kind, and selfless, and radical, and forgiving. Love changes you, and is always leading you to better things. Taking new steps, moving forward in ways your parents and grandparents could not. I know all of this to be true because I am a product of love in its purest form.

So that is all I wanted to share. Just how lucky I am, to have the opportunity to receive hand-me-downs, and nights of midnight giggles with my sisters. I love that I am nothing, if not for the family that brought me to where I am today.

Okay, love you! Bye!