It was a quiet evening when I sat down with my sister, Emma, for our interview. We were both in my room, sharing the same blanket and sitting on my bed, with my lamp casting a warm light around us. The house was quiet, and it felt like the perfect time to talk. It didn’t feel formal or planned, just a simple conversation between sisters.
As we started talking, I realized how nice it was to slow down and really listen to her. I see Emma every day, but hearing her stories and the way she thinks about life made me appreciate her in a new way. We laughed, we got a little serious, and there were moments that really made me think. By the end, I felt closer to her because I understood her a little better than I did before.
GRACE – Who do you think is the most impactful person in your life?
EMMA – Uh, probably Mom.
GRACE – What lessons has Mom taught you?
EMMA – I feel like the biggest lesson is just always try your hardest. The outcome doesn’t always matter as long as you try your hardest doing it. She’s never been like “if you don’t get all A’s you’re a failure” but it’s a “if you didn’t try, and that’s why you didn’t get A’s, then we need to talk.” Ya know? If you got a C but you studied every night for it, then that’s great, then you got a C and that’s okay. But like, if you got a C because you didn’t go to class, well that’s not the same thing. Ya know? I feel like that’s something she always talks about.
GRACE – Yeah for sure! You’ve always been a straight A student, right? Your GPA in high school was 4.4 I believe.
EMMA – Mhmm.
GRACE – When you got a lower grade in a class or did badly on a test, would you stress out or were you more go with the flow?
EMMA – Uh no. I only like getting A’s and I don’t like getting anything other than an A, and I don’t like A-’s cause that’s a fake A. It’s like a pity A. Saying like “ah you’re so close, but you still failed.” But that’s just for me, because I don’t care what other people get. If the other people get an A- on a test then that’s great, that’s a great score. I just can’t- I can’t deal with that personal score, so that doesn’t work for me. And that you can credit to our father. So, that’s his fault. I only like winning, and I can win by getting A’s against myself.
GRACE – Do you think competitiveness runs in our family?
EMMA – I don’t think we’re competitive against each other. I think I am competitive with things that I can control. If it’s gonna be something that I know I’m never gonna win then I don’t really care, and I’m just there for fun. But when it’s just like me against myself, I will win.
GRACE – Ok, haha. That’s beautiful. Does the stress of college ever get to your head?
EMMA – It’s not that stressful I feel like. The most stressful part was socially like “I need to make friends, I need to make friends, I need to go and do things and make friends.” And once that was settled, then I’ve been chill. I mean things get stressful like “oh I have an ECON exam,” like that is stressful but it’s not an overwhelming arching sense of stress that lingers over me at all times. It’s just situational, like “oh this week I have this presentation,” and that’s kinda stressful but it’s not an overwhelming cloud.
GRACE – Do you think that the friends you’ve made in college have helped you assimilate yourself into a new city?
EMMA – Yeah, I mean I feel like that happens for everyone. If you find it hard to make friends that just is hard because then you’re kind of alone in trying to figure it all out, but once you make friends we’re all figuring it out together. So then it’s a little less daunting.
GRACE – That’s so true. Do you miss your friends from when you were in high school? Do you wish you could still hangout with some of them?
EMMA – Like sometimes, but I like my friends at school. I feel like we’re all a lot closer and more connected and on the same path in life. I feel like my high school friends kind of diverted in a lot of different directions, and I love them all but I just don’t feel as connected to them.
GRACE – As you once did?
EMMA – I mean I just don’t think I ever felt immensely connected to any of them.
GRACE – Oh!
EMMA – And now I feel like I’m very connected with my friends at school.
GRACE – What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in your life? Not related to Mom or our parents, just in general.
EMMA – Umm, I think the most important lesson that I still think about is that you can only control what you can control. And one of my soccer coaches told me that once in a game against my old team because I switched clubs.
GRACE – Oh yeah, Minnetonka to Fusion.
EMMA – Mhmm. And when I switched to Fusion I ended up playing my old team, and I knew every single person on the team, I knew every single parent on the sidelines, I knew the coach, and everyone was yelling at me, and it was like the worst game ever, but we won so it was fine.
GRACE – Haha! Of course you won!
EMMA – I only win. No, my soccer team was often very bad-
GRACE – Haha!
EMMA – But we won that game because that’s why I switched clubs. Haha. Um, but mentally it was terrible cause I felt so guilty for playing against everyone, and some of the girls I wasn’t super close with on the team before were mean to me. Well, not mean, that is dramatic. Like, I just could feel their anger at me on the field. They were never mean to me on the team, they were not mean to me at that game, but like- it felt like…
GRACE – Like the energy…
EMMA – Yeah, I could feel it. Then my coach was like “you’re playing bad, what the F?,” and I was like “I don’t know, this game is just tweaking me out because I’m playing against everyone that I know.” And she was like “yeah, that’s really hard” and she said “Well you can only control what you can control, and right now you can control how you’re playing and not how they’re acting.” And I was like “yeah, right!” I think that’s true of all things. You can only control what you can control like, “oh I don’t like this place that I’m in, everyone is really loud and I would just rather be home, but you know what, this is where I am and I just have to focus on what I can do. And what I can do is talk to someone I know and go make the best of this situation.” Or like in a class that is hard, like my ECON class that I just took was really hard, and I was like “it’s the teachers fault, she goes through her slides too fast,” but you know what? That’s what everyone else is dealing with and I can just do what I need to do and focus on what I need for this class. And that was to go to all of her office hours, and do all of my homework, and do the extra readings, and do all of these things, and then I passed the class with 99%.
GRACE – Go you! Pop off!
EMMA – You know what I mean? Like you can’t blame other people, you have to do what you have to do.
GRACE – Yeah, like it’s all on you.
EMMA – Yeah, but not like “all on you” in a bad way. I just meant it in more of a calming way. I can’t control how my professor is gonna teach, I can control how I’m going to respond to that, and do what I need to do to succeed in that environment. I guess… That felt like a billion different lessons I feel I just tried to explain in one.
GRACE – Haha!
