The Family You're Born With, The Family You Create

For the past five years, I had been suffering an occasional trauma to my back, which I would always refer to as "my crookedness," - the muscles on the lower left side of my spine would completely seize up, causing my pelvis to tilt and making my hips look crooked. It was so ghastly and unbelievably painful, and always seemed to occur during stressful times in life - particularly during transitions, when feelings of being alone, ungrounded, unstable and unsupported were most intense (which makes great sense, as those lumbar muscles are those which "support" the body).

I was completely convinced that this pain was, indeed, brought on by stress. My method, then, for curing the pain was to tend to the body with bedrest, massage and chiropractic, and to endeavor to identify the source of the stress which initially caused the pain, and work through it by writing and loads of talk therapy. For years, it went on this way, and while the situations incurring the pain varied greatly, the pain itself and the internal dilemmas were almost always the same: very much centered around my childhood, family, and the way I was raised.

I didn't have very much support growing up. My parents were not present. There was very litle guidance. There was a lot of hostility. I floated between my mom's house, my dad's house, the babysitter's, the cousins and grandparents and friends' houses with no real sense of "home." My mom's house would have been declared as the official "home," but there was seldom anyone there, and when my mom wasn't working and my sisters were around, it was a house filled with much sadness and anger. When I think back to that first home, I don't find many happy memories there at all. Yet, I can recall many memories of feeling alone and afraid. When my back would later give out on me as an adult, each and every time, the feelings attached to it were also of feeling alone and afraid - and, I should mention, both anger and sadness, too, that I was/am so alone and so afraid.

This summer, as noted in previous posts, my back not only "acted up" again, but went the full distance, and just up and quit on me. For the month of July, I was in more pain than I had ever experienced in my life. I had gone crooked again, shortly after an old friend had come into town and signed a lease with me on an apartment, and then backed out. BOOM! Crooked. Alone, unsupported, not knowing where I'd go or where home would be, afraid, angry, sad.... the usual gamut. I went back to my tried and true methods of healing: bedrest, massage, chiropractic - even added acupuncture into the mix. While I was laid up, I spent time reflecting and examining the situation, and the old memories connected to it. I wrote poetry, spoke with friends and my shrink. But something was different this time... I wasn't getting better.

I soon began to experience intense sciatic pain shooting down my left leg. Now, I wasn't only crooked, but I was losing feeling and all strength from the leg, and could barely walk without excruciating and blinding pain. Having no medical insurance, I stuck with the homepathic healing and healers I knew and were offering their services - I added in shiatsu, reiki, myofascial release, herbs, supplements, arnica creams and biofreeze. While some would give me temporary relief, the pain continued to increase and journey further and further down my leg, to my ankle and foot.

In the meantime, my current apartment had been rented out for the month of August - I had to move! I had to find a place to move to, pack all my things, clear out by the end of the month, and have the place cleaned to get my deposit back - and I could barely even move from bed to bathroom! The stress, the crisis, feeling so overwhelmed and not even being physically able to get to my computer to look online for apartments, let alone get in the car to go see them, was.... well, I don't know a word for it. What's more scary than utter fear? That's what I felt.

I hadn't been in contact with my family for well over a year at this point. My father, who ever protected and came to the rescue, had passed away. It was all on me. I felt like I was eight years-old, hiding in the closet in the house of my youth, crying alone, wishing and praying that someone would come to help me.

And they did.

It started with my friend Nicole (as it always does) who sent her husband over to bring food, ice for my back, biofreeze, a backbrace, and other supplies to keep at my bedside for convenience while we figured it all out. Next, my ex-boyfriend Scott (who has always been dubbed "Mr.Mean," due to a song I wrote about our awful break-up) called and said he had a place for me to live. Then, the team came, one by one, day by day... Beth, Jeannie, Brant, Alyssa, Serena all came with boxes, with food, starting to pack me up as I either lied in bed immobile, or made trips to the ER and clinics.

It was a harrowing, emotional time for me. Not only was I in such great physical pain, but now was cycling through feelings of guilt, shame, helplessness, frustration, etc, that I was lying in bed while my house was being packed up around me. It was humiliating and humbling. I would stare out the window or at the water-stained ceiling with tears rolling down my face. Someone would come in to ask a question and catch me like this, would sit at the end of my bed and tell me, "Emily, you have been a great friend to me in this way or that way. You helped me in my life at this time or that time. You are so loved, and it's time for you to sit back, focus on your healing, and let us do this for you. Stop feeling guilty. There is no shame. You need our help, and we are your family, here to give it to you."

The day of the move was horrendous. Despite hiring actual movers, I still had Nicole and Brent and Todd over to help load and unload box after box, heavy furniture, pets, you name it. It took the entire day and over $500, and there were still a few loads left behind. The next day, Alyssa and Lloyd showed up. We made two trips and managed to get the place cleaned. It was over - at least, the move was over. My back was another story.

In the midst of it all, we discovered that I would need a spinal surgery to remove a disc that had left its place between my vertebrae, and had shacked up in my spinal canal, pressing against my spinal cord. I had a matter of days to organize my new home, which was piled in with boxes and furniture, so that when I came out of the hospital, I'd at least be able to get around and have the things I needed most at hand. Again, Todd came over one night, this time with Rich, and they moved furniture and other heavy items to set in places out of the way of my walking paths. I saw so much sweat dripping from my friends' bodies over these few days. More drops of sweat than tears I'd cried over it, I think.

While I was in the hospital having surgery, Krissa organized a schedule for my return home - a schedule of friends who had each chosen a day of the week when they would swing by and bring food, do chores, take the dog out, etc. There were peopleon this list that I had never even spent a one-on-one with before, people from the circle that I barely knew anything about, and yet when they heard I needed help, they signed up and they came.

Carlos, another ex from almost a decade ago, volunteered to come by and take care of the animals while I was in the hospital. He's been by several times since I've been home, bringing bags of organic food and groceries, taking the dog for a walk, bringing me a laptop so that I can stay communicated and productive while in bed! And even my ex-husband, all the way in NYC, paid my cable bill from the old apartment so that I'd have internet and tv while I recover.

It's been like this now for the past week. Every single day, I have at least a half dozen friends who call or text or email or chat online, all asking how I am, what I need, if they can help. I have so many visitors, I leave my doors open so people can keep coming and going without having to get up to answer each and every time!

There's a huge moral to this long story that I'm tryng to get too, but finding the words has been the challenge all along. For 34 years, I have carried an immense pain in my heart and body (apparently mostly in my back) and spirit relating to family. I never felt like I had family. There was never anyone to turn to in my hour of need (except Dad, always Dad, but he's gone now), and I was forced to be so independent, self-sufficient and strong from such a young age. The anger I carried about that, the sadness, and so much fear from being so small and so alone - trying to heal that little girl in me for so many years, but she would just gnash her teeth into me again and again, never letting it go. For as long as she held on to all that pain, all that pain held me back in my life, in the pursuit of my dreams, in my relationships, in finding and living my joy.

But this whole experience - this awful, painful, dreadful experience - has given birth to the most profound epiphany of my life: I have a family. Not the family I was born to, but the family that over years I have cultivated and created for my self. This family loves me for exactly who I am - they celebrate me. They love me unconditionally, and have seen me at my very best and very worst and STILL love me. This family will never let me falter, or leave me to suffer. This family will support me, guide me, share with me, teach me, learn from me, learn with me. This family will be there for me in my hour of need, will calm my fears, will let me cry and vent and feel bad for myself, and tell me that it's ok. That I am ok. That I am MORE than ok... just in the past few days I've been told I am "amazing," "a goddess," "an inspiration," "a leader," "a gift." A gift. Me? Yes, me.

For the very first time EVER in my life, a peace has fallen over me. This new understanding and knowledge that I am NOT alone in the world, that I DO have a family, and that this family is better than any I could have ever asked for or dreamed of is something so profound, so humbling, so heart-exploding... it's been hard to describe. But the most amazing part of it all: that little girl in me, who ate at me my entire life, is finally, FINALLY at peace. I can feel her! She is not worried, not afraid, not angry... she is exactly as she should have been her whole life: happy, safe, and dancing circles around my heart.

To all of you, my dear and loving family, I thank you more than words could ever say. Even as I've been writing this, the phone has been ringing, offers to go for a picnic today and a movie tonight to get me out of the house come rolling in! I am so blessed, and so grateful not only for all the help and support, but for the quality and caliber of people I am honored to be friends and family with - amazing healers, artists, mothers and fathers, teachers, guides, philanthropists. I am so eager to heal, to step into my full potential at long last, and to make you all so very proud of the woman I am, and am destined to become! I am eager to pay it all forward, and to help others as I have been helped. I am so inspired, my heart so full. I love you, you painted and glittered and fairy-wing-wearing, fuzzy-pant bearing, black-light dancing, new aged hippies and happies and mammies and pappies...

I am so happy to have you freaks to call home!

Acknowledgement

All of this healing I've been trying to accomplish in relation to my reoccurring and acute back pain has its roots in layers of deep emotional issues which I tend to ignore or really work through. Coupled with living my life at a breakneck speed, the pain returns again and again, and I am ever reminded of the inner work which is required of me (required of all of us) in order to evolve and manifest my (our) true destiny in this lifetime.

For me, the deeper issues go way back to my childhood, my family, issues of love and self-worth which continue to affect my relationships, my confidence, my ability to accomplish goals and make dreams come true. In everyone's lives, there are stories and moments which can never be changed, and we must find a place of acceptance, of forgiveness. I have struggled with this task for 34 years, and realize how critical it is that I now focus on and accomplish this work, in order to truly be happy, to walk my path, to be pain-free.

My stories (which will undoubtedly be revealing themselves in this forum) began when I was three-years old - a small girl in a small town. My parents had divorced, my father was in Guatemala (or who knows where), my mother working dreadfully long hours to support me and my sisters. My sisters were older and had no time for me. I was raised by a woman named Pearl, and a community of family and friends whom I would float between for a decade to come. There was little guidance, there were no rules, there was no stability. I learned the concepts of love and family in a skewed way. I grew up alone, although surrounded by the people of my town, who knew me and collectively looked after me. I had a lot of fear, both in my home and out in the world. I was, in essence, a wild child. These early experiences have clearly shaped much of my life that followed.

So, I'm trying to dig into all this... and in my pain, the images or thoughts that arise are from that small child's perspective: I hear myself crying out for my Mom or Daddy; I feel that old fear of being a tiny girl all alone in the world, with no where to call home; I feel the aching for someone to be at my side, loving me and caring for me. Quite honestly, I'm not even sure how to heal these old wounds, except to write about them, talk about them, see my shrink once a week, continue to work with healers and people who specialize in that deep energy work.

Last night, as I sifted through my facebook page, I became suddenly overwhelmed with a realization. In my pain over the past few days, as I was tortured with hard memories from the past and current feelings of being all alone and unlovable, I began to take notice of something so humbling, so mind-blowing, so heart-bursting that I had to grab my journal and make a list: just from my few posts over the past few days, an insane amount of people reached out to me in one way or another. I mean an INSANE amount of people. I was truly overwhelmed.

The words of support, the offers of assistance, and the LOVE expressed sincerely to me and for me went off like firecrackers in my brain. It occurred to me that even as I'm processing these old wounds, as I know I must do, I am doing it inside the most expansive circle of love and light and friendship and FAMILY. I am not, at all, in any way, alone in this world. I am, apparently, far far far from being unlovable. I am more than loved: I am cherished, I am cared for, I am worried about. I am not that small girl, hiding in a closet, crying for her Mommy and Daddy. I am a fortunate woman in this world, who has cultivated through my life a most impressive network of people who see something so wonderful in me, that at the first sign of crisis or pain, they are ready to swoop in and do anything possible to help alleviate my troubles. I have tears in my eyes now, feeling so grateful, so humbled, so fucking lucky.

It came to me then, that a key part in my healing must be to begin to spend more time acknowledging what I have, rather than what I don't have. Counting blessings, not tears. Shit - I just recorded a song about this very topic, and suddenly it makes even more sense to me! So, without further, ado... I would like to thank...

Brad, Ray and Jason for all of the massage and bodywork

Matt for getting me in right away for acupuncture

Keith for ongoing chiropractic care (and for tuning in to my heart)

Nate for the Raindrop Technique and emotional support

Carlos and Nicole for their offers of financial and emotional support

Alyssa for networking and seeking out healing alternatives

Melissa for offering yoga therapy

Peter for company and chocolate

Bryce for thinking of my stresses, and offering to help lighten my load

Krissa for giving me direction, and soothing my mind

Chris for being my nighttime nurse, and constantly checking to see if I'm okay

Osho for... being Osho

Lilly for running to me every time she heard me cry, pawing at my nose, and literally licking the tears off my face

And to all of these people for sending notes, mail, texts and calls of support and love:

Bob W., Aimie, Dresden, Lee, Brooke, Tami, Marcus, Matty C., Matt S., Laura, Lindsay, Robert, Miranda, Melanie, Rich, Tommy, Shaman, Bob O., Saumer, ChaCha, Shawn, Ben, Joe, Amanda, Ammy, and Holland...

I sincerely thank you all for being in my life. You continue to mirror back to me the best that I am, accepting all my flaws and shortcomings, validating my path and my person. I must be blessed beyond all imaginings to be gifted with such amazing friends. You have all helped to ease my pain. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I love you. You make my heart happy.

To the Rainbow, I Go

Quite the adventure ahead...

It's been seven years since I last went to a Rainbow Gathering. Seven. Damn. Chelsea and I used to make it out pert' near every year for a solid run there, but then... life, men, work, money... typical distractions of life, pulling us from our annual Welcome Home. Things are so different now in 2010... I am free, untied, unemployed... and the drums have made their call. In just a few hours, the gypsy wagon points east, and Red and I are freeway-bound, forest-aimed. Soon to be sky-clad and earth-pounding. Hippie bliss.

It's a little chaotic to be taking off in the middle of soooo much activity: the month of July is booked solid with teaching, rehearsals, performance, weddings and MOVING! Exactly why it's so enticing to dip out for a week, and bury myself in the woods where no one can reach me, where time is all mine, where I follow compelling instincts from moment to moment, and always end up exactly where I should be. The Rainbow is awesome-eerie in that way... synchronicity at its finest. Magic always afoot.

Mostly, I'm looking forward to reconnecting with my gypsy tribe. I've known some of them since I was a child, and others I haven't seen for nearly a decade. I think of all that has befallen us in those years - births and deaths, weddings, divorces, fortunes and losses. We'll never even get to it all in the short time I'm there, and won't need to. When I walk into the circle, I will be home. I will be welcomed as a daughter, sister and friend. I will embrace and be embraced, and that will be enough. We will sing and dance and pray. We will smile. I will look into their eyes, as they look into mine, and we will already know each other's hearts. We have been doing this my whole life.

My producer gave me a greater purpose: to find my name in the forest. We are on the cusp of launching my solo project, and I have battled the name game my whole life. Emily Gergen simply never had the panache I've craved for stage. Emily Bar is no longer. Ea Colay was too heady - "the world that is woman" by definition, but too easily mispronounced and misunderstood.

A few months back, I reassumed my very first alias: Aida Blue, given to me by the gypsies I set out to meet on this trip. Aida was a wild child, strong, beautiful, free... I've been feeling her and living that vibe intensely this year. It makes sense to saddle up with her again, and why not forever? She is the expression of my spirit. At any rate, I'll be hearing the name all weekend, and can try it on again, dust it off a bit and see how she shines. I go into the woods one woman, and plan to come out another.

In regards to much of my life, that sentiment rings true. It has been a most transformative year, and I have made incredible progress on all fronts: creative, spiritual, physical, social, emotional... Huge strides made towards becoming the woman I've always known I'm meant to be, and recognizing the amazing gifts the Universe continues to bestow on me for my hard work, efforts and diligence. Over the past month, I've become somewhat distracted by my social life, my heart, and loins... I know this trip will bring it back to center again. I need to cool off a bit on all that, and add some wood to the fire of my destiny. Something much larger than me is manifesting, and I need to be ready.

So, to the Rainbow, I go. No resistance at all. Back to camp. Back to roots. Back to G-Funk and Lovin Ovens. Back to the Grandmothers and spirit songs. Back to sushi and mimosas at NY Camp. Back to Jiva and Fantuzzi. Back to the loving arms of Freedom. I'm coming home to all of this, and so much more. I'm coming back to me.

Can't wait to hear those words: "Welcome home, little Aida. We love you."

"And I love you..."

The Big Chill

After cooking up some pasta for dinner, and uncorking a really cheap bottle of wine, I decided to nestle in for a bit with a flick. Nothing of interest on the cable channels I pay a fortune for (as usual), so I searched the free movies On Demand, and saw "The Big Chill." It had been a very long time since I last saw it, but was drawn in not only by my memory of having liked it years ago, but also from remembering that my family once had the vinyl soundtrack to it, with great old Motown tracks to sing along to, which I always loved to play in my youth.

As the movie starts out, I'm reminded of the theme: one member of a group of old friends kills himself, and the others all come together for the funeral and a weekend of reminiscing and re-connecting in a slew of different ways.

*Big breath*

I do the initial preparation, as I still do, guarding my emotions from scenes of death and a funeral. My father's passing is still fresh, just over a year later. I thought while watching the opening scenes, eyes watering despite my stoic efforts, that I'll probably always be one of those people who cries easily when speaking of death, and of Dad, always missing him so.

After those first few scenes, as it gets into the story with the group of friends being together in their comfortable, however drawn apart, circle, another familiar emotion of late crops up: loneliness. I've already written about it several times in my blogs, and it is a prevalent theme in my life these days. I spend many nights at home alone, just aching for familiar company and affection. I cry about it sometimes, think about it way too often, try to write it out in songs or poems.

Watching these friends in the film reminds me of my own circle, knowing that our busy time of the year together - festival season - is upon us, and there will be many of these reunions just around the corner. It gives me comfort. I scold myself for being so indulgent in this sentiment, reminding myself that I had two lovely invitations just this evening to go out and be in good company. In the end, I chose to stay home - and for good reason: I have a busy day ahead tomorrow with dress rehearsals at two schools, and a cocktailing gig in the evening which one of my best friends hooked me up with. I need an early night, and good rest.

As the movie played on, I realized just how long it's been since I last watched it. I thought, "Wow, I'm now the age of these characters... have experienced similar events and dynamics in my own life." This fascinated me, and I mused for a bit on aging. One day, you're watching a film your parents really seemed to like, and you did too, in your young age - fantasizing about the intricate love triangles, eager for the day when you'll enjoy adult commaraderie over many glasses of wine (and other things!), wishing that you were as cool, as "put together" as the adults always seemed to be.

I toss back another glass of Garnacha (which is quite fine for only $4/bottle), looking at the door, wishing someone lovely and romantic would come knocking, wanting to share the other 1/2 bottle with me. And then, for the first time, I realize something: this loneliness beleaguring me, which I moan to my friends about too often of late, is really just a pretense. In the first place, I've never, ever really been alone - throughout my whole life, I have been exhaustingly blessed with people - gads of people everywhere. Friends, fans, colleagues, what have you. In the second, even throughout the many years I was coupled with partners, I still felt lonely. They would be there, providing for me exactly what I think I'm missing so dearly now - warmth, companionship, affection... my argument then was always that it just wasn't what I wanted; THEY just weren't what I wanted at that time, in those moments. The grass is always greener. As Joni says, "I'm so hard to handle; I'm selfish and I'm sad..."

"So what do I want?," I ask, my mind racing. I want to be brave, and to acknowledge that what I'm truly feeling is a deeper loneliness that has been with me throughout my life. I have tried to mask it, and hide from it by being with other people, being on stage in front of people, by smoking grass to help me to forget, by staying in relationships that didn't suit me to draw the attention and focus away from where it should have been all along: on me.

Why is it so hard to sit with myself and just be? What is so lacking, or starving, or desperate, or cold? Why am I afraid I don't have the spark within me to feed those coals, to fan those flames, to stand in the middle of my burning and still be okay? I feel that I DO know this on a conscious level, feel like I've been self-analyzing for decades of my life, and KNOW myself. Yet, on an emotional level, I still struggle to understand. I fail to understand what the struggle even is anymore.

I know many people in my life who see me from their perspective, who opine about what they feel I have yet to realize and to change or fix. They do this from a place of love, and they offer suggestions when I ask their direct opinion - because I have that kind of circle of friends, just like in the movie, and better. I hear their words, I agree with their insight. It all registers in the head, but has yet to really sink into the heart. People say, "You can't fix what you don't acknowledge." I don't know about that. I think that's the first step, but after comes the arduous work of living life, experiencing moments that continue to guide and teach you until you're at that perfect place where lessons can finally sink in and take hold. 'Til it hits the "warm spot," that sacred honey pot, sealed with its sticky sweetness and guarded by ten million stinging bees. It takes a perfect moment to access that doorway. Just ask Pooh.

I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette, and before I had even finished half, the melancholy had subsided. Only two minutes away from the movie and my mind was already racing with all the projects, plans, dreams I'm making daily progress towards. What a character I am - I laughed thinking that I should, myself, be in a movie. Lord knows, I come pistol-packed with a billion stories and every emotion known to man tacked firmly in place with each and every one of them.

'Til then: it might be lonely, it might be hard. I will continue to question and wonder, weep and worry, cry and laugh two seconds later. It's gonna take time, and I'm glad to have this life to figure it out. Time to find that perfect spark within me which, I hope, will begin to thaw my own inner Big Chill.

Sister Struggles

I awakened this morning in a bad way. Dreaming of my sister, the mean one. In the dream, she paraded in front of me the sacred treasures from my father's house that she and my other sister, the weak one, had divvied up after he passed, and while I was out of town. I saw the items - some which I had even forgotten about til I saw them in the dream - pass in front of me, one by one. I knew I couldn't touch them. I knew they were lost to me forever. I never had a say about where they would go from the beginning, and I never, ever would. In my dream, before I awakened, I screamed over and over again, "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"

It's been over a year since I've been estranged from my mother and two sisters. I'd like to say it's rare that I think of them, but that would be a lie. After losing my father, and then the rest of my family, I can't help but to think of the past, remembering some good times and many bad. In the beginning, and for months, I was plagued with horrifying thoughts - fighting with my sister, my mother's betrayal, the look on my nephew's face.

A kind friend explained to me that by thinking of these things, I was connecting myself to them by a black cord of negative energy. He suggested that when the thoughts arise, I imagine myself cutting that cord, and sending them off and away from me with loving thoughts. This helped me a lot, actually, and I rarely think about the truly gruesome times anymore. Indeed, after the initial grieving period (for my father, as well as the others), I've found the separation to be extremely liberating and healthy for me as I continue on my true path for my life, making the decisions and choices that are true to my spirit, no longer feeling their judgement, disapproval, and absence of support.

I grew up in a family of women: my mother and two sisters, a stepmother later with her two daughters. I was the youngest of them all, and always found it difficult to assert myself, to have my voice heard, to be counted. I have a domineering personality, and certainly never feared to hold back from expressing my thoughts, opinions, and feelings. I suppose I did this to a fault, as I always felt so unacknowledged that my anger and sadness at it all bubbled up volcano-style and could spatter and spew and lay waste to these primary female relationships in my life. But the fault was certainly not mine alone: the mean sister controlled our family with her manipulations and bullying, my mother and eldest sister were both too weak to defy her. Because I was not weak, and stood my ground with her time and time again, the line was drawn. Sides had to be taken. In the end, I stand alone.

The other female relationships I have in my life are of extreme importance and significance to me. My very spirituality is goddess-based, and centered on the beliefs of true sisterhood and feminine bonding. I have endeavored to study the ways of the ancient priestesses, to become a modern-day example of a true daughter of the goddess. The dilemma is presented: how do I react and relate to my sisters of the world, when my own experience with sisterhood was so toxic and negative throughout my life?

I considered this in my journalling this morning, in reflecting on a close female friend's recent choices, which I find to be troubling, difficult, and which cause me great concern and worry for her current state of thinking, and the consequences of it. My initial reaction, I noted, reminded me of my mean sister, and how she would respond when I made choices she disapproved of. She would give me a thorough tongue-lashing, would insult me, would bully me into agreeing with her, and when I stood my ground, she would cut me off. She would cut me off from her children, my beloved nieces and nephew, and would draw that line in the sand for our other family members to choose sides. There could be no way, except her way, and if you deviated from the path she had decided was yours, then you could no longer exist in her world. I suffered this cruelty in many of the worst moments of my life - the very moments when I needed my sisters, my family, their unconditional love and compassion the most. I was brought up in this dynamic, and the residual effects from it linger in me still.

This is not sisterhood. This is not goddesstry. This is not the way for the women of the world to behave to one another. On my path, I would never wish for this kind of reaction from a sister and friend, and so I must be ever clear, careful and considerate about my own reactions to the women in my life. The dilemma returns: how do I react and relate to my sisters of the world, when my own experience with sisterhood was so toxic and negative throughout my life?

I search within myself to find not the aspects of the mean sister I grew up with, but to find the sister in me that I always wanted to have and to be: loving, honest, kind, concerned, communicative, supportive, compassionate, strong. I was not taught to be this kind of woman by my family members, but it was the kind of sister I always dreamed of having, and wanted to embody for myself. Although I have little control over the dynamics of my own family, I have complete freedom to now establish the new family of my life - with my friends, colleagues, mentors, etc. - and to behave in the manner I've long desired.

This new situation with my beloved friend challenges me to rise up and become the woman I am meant to be. To manifest the healthy, loving relationships I've been denied. To be true to my path, and to change the ingrained characteristics which lead me astray. I can allow my friend the space she needs to follow through with what she feels is right. I can be available to her, as I've always been, to talk and discuss from a place of honesty and concern, but with kindness and compassion. I can let her know that I'm struggling to understand her choices, but that my love for her will never diminish, and I am working hard to be the supportive friend she needs. Indeed, I can thank her for being my friend, and for presenting me with this opportunity to grow and to learn and to heal my own wounds. Our mutual understanding and unconditional love is a blessing we both share. In thinking of her situation in this way, this new way, my entire physical and emotional body shifts - the anxiety and negative emotions about her choices dissipate, and I feel lighter, calmer, happier. This tells me I am, indeed, staying true to my path and spirit.

As for my own sisters, at the moment, our separation seems necessary for this kind of transformative individual work. Whether they see it that way or not, or feel they need to work on themselves or not, I know it's a healthier choice for me.

You cannot forever seal the door to your family. They are with you for life, in one way or another. I believe I chose them from before birth, and the issues we have are meant to be tools for learning and growth. The day may come when we are different people who find a sturdier bridge over that line drawn in the sand where we can meet again. My deepest wish is that if we do, when we do, we will finally be the sisters we were born to be.