Dear Darlings,

What’s the one thing in life you really want to work to achieve? Money? Power? Fame?

For me, it’s simple…family and love are my go to answers.

When I first started dating Stan so, So, SO many years ago, I was over-the-moon ecstatic at the prospect of becoming the “big sister” to his three younger brothers. I couldn’t wait to be a part of a big family. It was like a dream come true.

Until it wasn’t.

One day my vision of a big, happy family went so far south I thought I landed in Hell. No actually, it really was Hell. I was with Lucifer in the deep, dark depths of Hades, and I wasn’t sure I could get out.

Let me try to explain…

You see, other sisters started coming on board making this family bigger and bigger. Heaven, I thought, was finally here. Except for one small detail…one of the new sisters and I had a colossal falling out. It was ugly with a capital U. I thought my dream of a big family full of love and laughter was gone forever.

Enter time and healing…

While it’s true that time heals wounds, it doesn’t fix them completely without work. A broken bone can’t be re-set without working back into place, just like a heart slashed into a million pieces can’t be put back together without work. The hurt in our family was once a massive, gaping wound festering with maggots and disease. There are scars, to be sure, but they are fading to a light, shimmery silver, instead of deep, angry reddish-purple. And they’re growing dimmer because she and I decided to put in the work to make this family whole again. They are the battle scars to prove we made life and love and family our priority.

She and I had a lunch date recently, where honesty reigned supreme, and we put our cards (and our hearts) on the table. We talked through some of the hurt. We both took ownership of our emotions. We bonded over things no one outside of this crazy family would ever understand. And we joined forces with a vision for what we want this big, ol’ family of ours to look like.

Was it easy to work at any of those things I mentioned above? Hell to the NO it wasn’t easy (well, the bonding over crazy family things was easy), but it was beyond worth it. The evolution of our relationship is what family can truly be, if you want it enough…from battle-scarred relatives by marriage to trepidatious sisters to allies in this giant craziness of a family. She and I took a fractured relationship and we made it whole. When you can take shattered bits of heart and soul and carefully stitch them back together with love…that’s family. And I am blessed to count her as not only a sister, but also as a friend.

So, my darlings, take stock of what it is that is important to you and resolve to work at it. If it’s important to  you, the work is worth it.

xo,
Me