In fact, I’ve had one my entire life.  I just had no idea.

Long story short:

It was almost four years ago.  I was on tour with American Aquarium.  We were playing a show at The Evening Muse in Charlotte, NC, with Jeremy Fisher and the North Labrea All-Star Conquistadors (to be specific). I was turning 20 at midnight.

(photo from that night)

I was sitting at the merch table, blogging away (writing this one, actually), and I check my MySpace inbox to find a message from a Brandi Price – my older sister. At this point, I’d never heard anything about a sister. Needless to say, this came as a little surprise.

My dad had died a few weeks ago, and apparently in the sorting through of his estate it was discovered that he in fact had another child. The estate lawyer contacted her and provided her with information that eventually led to her finding me on MySpace. She unfortunately never met my dad, and had no idea who he was until receiving the news that he was dead.

All of this was a bit emotionally taxing, if you will, but man, it’s an exciting feeling to discover you have another sibling! Interacting with her was amazing – she has an eerily similar sense of humor and even writing style to me – I sometimes felt like I was writing to myself. Genetics at work, I suppose.

Brandi and I obviously had a lot of catching up to do. The next six months were filled with long letters back and forth, ranging from lining up our pasts to talking about boyfriends. It was awesome. And then… she disappeared. Her messages stopped coming, and eventually she deleted her MySpace account completely, without a word.

I’ve spent the last two and some years incessantly searching the depths of the internet for her (how can someone related to me be so hard to find online?), I had pretty much given up on finding her again.

Then, Saturday morning, I check my inbox to see an email from Brandi Price.

Guess what? She lives an hour and a half from San Francisco, and we’re grabbing a drink on Friday. I finally get to meet my freaking sister.

23 years late, but it’ll do.