Stories of Sisterhood

[psusue]

So to preface this story, I broke up with my boyfriend of 2.5 years last May. This year in October I believe I was flipping through facebook (I'm no longer friends with my ex but he isn't blocked) and I saw he commented on something so I clicked on his profile. Big mistake. His profile picture was him and his new girlfriend (who he was "friends" with the whole time he was abroad and started dating basically the minute we stopped dating) holding hands in the country he was working in. It also seemed that it was recent because his hair was different than it had been while he was there.

I lost it. I knew that they were official and all but to see living proof of it killed me. Though I technically broke up with him I still had feelings for him (we had talked very seriously about engagement before breaking up, he'd looked at rings and told me about it) it hit me like a freight train to see that picture. I also had no idea that he'd been back to visit her, which made the situation that much more serious for the two of them. I immediately started to tear up, but I was trying to hold back because my roommate was in the room, and later a good friend of mine. It wasn't until a third friend came into the room that I let my facade slip a little and the third friend asked me what was wrong. I lost it. Started uncontrollably bawling, incoherent, the whole bit. See for me with painful memories I often hold in my feelings until they explode, so I hadn't thought about it in a long time, and I was not yet healed about it.

My sisters didn't say anything. They just climbed into my bed and held me as I tried to explain what they already knew. My second sister told me that she knew I was holding it in a lot and that I needed to let it out more, that it was okay, that it was really hard what had happened. When I was able to breathe again I thanked them, but they said for what because I'd been there for them at different times for different things. They told me they loved me and just rubbed my back until I stopped crying. If you ask me what sisterhood is, this is what I think about. The women that are there for you, not just when something hard happens, but even in the long months thereafter when the pain is still there and other people have stopped caring. It's why I've stuck with this for as long as I have and it's what I think of when times are hard.