Undergraduate / "I acquired Emily and Melanie as step-sisters" - a person who has had an influence [4]

****** This is the prompt I'm doing :
Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

Every single night after my parent's divorce I would come home after school, go straight into my little room, plop myself into my little pink rocking chair, stare at my little television, and think of how little I seemed to people. I may have not been a loner, but that didn't mean I wasn't alone. There was not anyone around for me to share my hopes, dreams, and secrets with, not even someone as simple as a brother or sister. My solitary lifestyle easily turned me into a timorous child, one without any motivation to succeed or excel. It was not until my dad remarried that I became a different person. It was not until I acquired Emily and Melanie as step-sisters that I became someone worth knowing.

Emily and Melanie were complete opposites; Emily was very feminine, always wearing the cutest clothes and doing her hair in the latest trends, and very funny, cracking jokes about everything and anything. Melanie on the other hand was very athletic, participating in about three different soccer teams, constantly biking and playing tennis, and very smart, achieving straight A's and participating in about five different extracurricular clubs. The two are both older than I am, Emily by three years and Melanie by one. Their personalities were therefore developed far beyond my meager nine years.

When our parents married and we were combined from two families into one, none of us knew how to act. We roll played for a few weeks, changing our attitudes towards each other from friendly, to mocking to outright cruel. After a few months we found our places in our new family, and all felt we could remove the prefix "step" from the word sister.

The more time I spent with them, the more I wanted to be like them. I quickly and easily became "copycat Kayla," playing soccer only because Melanie was playing, wearing Emily's clothes because they looked good on her, joining clubs because they were both in them. Maybe I did get on their nerves, I'm sure Emily still wishes she had some of her clothes back, but my copycat days helped me turn into my own person. Having two sisters motivated me to be better. I wanted to get better grades than Melanie did at my age, I wanted to wear my own clothes that looked nice, I wanted to be a part of clubs that I was interested in. Though my parents had always attempted to get me to do all of these things, it wasn't until I had Emily and Melanie that I really wanted to.

Aside from Emily and Melanie's help in shaping my personality, the two also served as two great friends. Before them, I would hide problems instead of sharing them, I would stay quiet for I was too shy to speak, I would walk out of the house with purple pants and a gleaming green shirt because no one would tell me I looked like Barney. It is because of these two that I have excelled academically and socially. Without Emily and Melanie I might just be stuck in a big room with a big pink rocking chair, watching a big T.V. worrying about the same big problems. They have given me confidence and life skills that have helped me become who I am, they're more than friends and more than sisters, their my inspiration, they always have been and they always will be.