Coming full circle

Monday night marked the beginning of a new adventure. All initiated with one text. It had been a normal day, with me simply wanting to get the family settled so I could spend a night reading, but following seeing the message on my phone, everything shifted and I was trying to figure out how best to proceed; my mind racing as I was trying to make sense of what I was reading.

You see, the text was an apology from my sister. My younger sister whom I haven't spoken to in almost 9 years.

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My sister and I have always had a complicated relationship. While I was the oldest, she was the baby of the family and the one my mom visibly favored. I could wax and wane about favoritism and all the damage it can do to siblings, but needless to say things were complicated and hard. I loved my brother and sister and yet didn't know how to bond with them as I had a similar relationship with my mother.

Things only got harder as we got older, with my sister and I running in very different circles: she was the pretty, popular social butterfly while I was the fat but smart one who was hell-bent on getting away. Further on this was learning that my sister was sexually assaulted as a child by a neighbor boy, with her not remembering the assault until she was older. Thus there were years of dealing with someone who was angry and hostile, lashing out the most fiercely at the ones who were trying to support her.

The list is long. There's my wedding, where my sister threw a massive temper tantrum and I literally was wondering who would step in as my maid of honor. There were the trips home where we were supposed to spend time together that we instead spent with her leaving me in a crowd of strangers. There were the fights and the lashing out. All of it horrible, but I didn't know any other way.

Then infertility hit. And things started to become unbearable. The pain filled my body and soul in ways that few around me could understand. The day my sister told me she was pregnant due to failed birth control, right before I traveled home for my grandfather's funeral, my heart felt like it was ripped out of my chest. Though others told me that her pregnancy didn't mean that there would be less love, I immediately could see how much of an outsider I was and how any hope of support I had was about to evaporate.

Two months later, when I asked my sister to promise to not make another scene at my Ph.D. defense, she responded by accusing me of trying to harm her unborn child. At that moment, I knew that though I loved her, I couldn't continue having her in my life. And as the rest of my familial ties were cut, with my mother attempting to force me to temporarily adopt my cousin's son, I would find myself truly alone and cut off from all I knew.

It's the loneliest I've ever been in my life.

For 9 years, through infertility, the arrival of Maddy and Teddy, two cross country moves and redefining my career path, I've not ever tried to reestablish ties. My sister did reach out in 2015 after Grey and I initiated contact with my parents and my family learning about Maddy and Teddy's existence. But her message then was worded the same as past interactions, with her lamenting that Maddy and Teddy would never have the opportunity to know her (and me having the gut reaction of "hell no").

For 9 years, I've focused on moving forward, defining who I am not on my past but on how I chose to be in the world and how I was defining myself.

For 9 years, outside the occasional visit from my brother, I've been homeless; rootless. So many passed judgement because I did the most unholy of unholy things and cut contact with those who shared my blood.

This recent text from my sister was wholly different.

I am currenly seeing a very good theapist. We have been discussing Mom and Dad. I am finally understanding why you have made the choices you have made to distance yourself from them. I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier. I'm also sorry for the things I did to you. All these years later, I have a very different perspective I know apologizing doesn't make it better. I just wanted to let you know. I won't message you again.

With that text came the first glimmers of hope for rebuilding and forming bridges. As I responded and probed, asking questions and allowing her to talk, I knew Grey was seeing what I was from the other room on the iPad and quietly taking it all in.

There's a long road ahead and I'm not naive that any of this will be easy. As I told my sister, hurts can be healed, but rebuilding trust is something that takes time. In addition, there's so much more at stake as I think not only about Maddy, Teddy, and Grey, but also about my sister's family. None of it can be grown overnight. All that said, another gift infertility gave me is the ability to walk forward into the unknown despite being terrified of the potential of hurt. To take chances because though the pain of failing is very real, worse is never even have tried at all.

Because the hope is that after everything, my sister and I are ready to come full circle. Resetting the foundation so that the sins of our ancestors can die with us.