Interview

“She means the whole world to me,” Katlyn Proctor beams as she speaks about he sister. How many people do you know that can say that about their siblings? Katlyn describes her sister as her ‘rock’ and her ‘go to person.’ This is somewhat surprising because growing up; Katlyn was a bit of a mother figure to her younger sister, Alexe. Generally, you would think Alexe may resent Katlyn but they are as tight as ever, “it’s hard to stress how important she is to me,” said Katlyn.

When Katlyn entered the sixth grade, her parents “sort of checked out of parenthood.” They had Katlyn very young and Alexe shortly after, so now that Katlyn was (to their standards) old enough to take care of herself and her sister, she had to grow up quickly. Katlyn holds a lot of anger towards her young-hearted parents and even admitted, “I’m really bitter towards them.” The day Katlyn was old enough to get a job, she had two and every paycheck she received went straight to her parents. She feels as though she lost some of her youth because she had to stay home and take care of Alexe and had to balance out going to high school and having two jobs, she did not have much time to be a free-spirited teenager.

Now, her parents are in the middle of a divorce, which Katlyn had said that both her and her sister have been expecting for a while, but it is becoming more of a burden on Katlyn and Alexe. The battle started last year while Katlyn was a freshman here at Roger Williams and Alexe was a senior, stuck at home in the middle of all of it. It killed Katlyn to know that Alexe was stuck at home dealing with it on her own, but she admitted that she found Roger Williams to be an escape and a comfort away from her contradicting parents. Both parents were pulling her in different directions and it seemed as though she felt like she abandoned Alexe when she said “[Alexe was] fighting a one-man battle when we were always on the same team.” Luckily Alexe is now a freshman at Keene State University in their home state of New Hampshire, but at least she is away from her battling parents and out of the house hopefully finding comfort and an escape as Katlyn did.