For many years I held the status of being an only child and the personality traits which accompany that still exist within me. I like organization and independence and can turn on my extroversion just long enough before I retreat to my bed and binge watch bad reality TV.
But I always envied the deep relationships I saw women form, especially when it came to sisterhood. There was something so comforting in knowing another human being not only had your back but understood you in your entirety.
I didn’t have enough gusto to join a sorority during my college years (again, recovering only child), but what I did do was stumble upon a co-worker—while slinging baby back ribs at a BBQ restaurant—who seemed familiar and safe and became a good friend.
Fast forward fifteen years later and we are sisters.
I use the term sisters because “friends” feels inadequate at this point. Over the last decade and a half, we’ve gone from football games and crowded bars to wedding vows and baby births. She was there when I found my husband unconscious on the floor and when my children were diagnosed with autism. We’ve supported each other through deaths and infertility, and also laughed so hard we’ve leaked. We live states away, but we always manage to get on a plane at least twice year—even during our children’s infancy years (well, pre-covid). She arguably knows more about me than even my own spouse.
We are sisters. Not by blood, but by bond.
It took me a while to realize that we’re not just born into families; we can create them too. We can search for the people who feel precious and whole and make them a priority. We can share holidays with them and secrets no one else knows. This level of friendship requires a great deal of vulnerability and it isn’t immediate. It starts with a seed of trust and blooms into an indivisibility. Before you know it, you have shared history and she’s the godmother of your children.
People call their husbands their soul mates, but I like to reserve that right for my sissy. She was the first one to see my real self and say, “So what? I love you anyhow.” She taught me that even as alone as we feel sometimes, at any second someone can appear, ready and willing to relate.
Ready and willing to become family.
There is nothing like a sister. Someone who makes you laugh uncontrollably and feel understood with no words at all. Someone who you can do nothing with and have it feel like everything. A woman who will stand with you in the storm, or sit on the floor with your children, taking them as her own.
If you don’t have a sister, it’s never too late to create one.
Because some are by blood.
And some are by bond.
To More Love,
Stephanie
