The Healing Nature of Sisterhood

I finally feel worthy of being welcomed

Making flower bouquets at Danielle’s Goodbye Uterus ceremony. Photo by Danielle

I didn’t find sisterhood, though for many years I tried — to no avail. Instead, it found me, and I stumbled in. Trepidatious and clumsy, unaware of how unprepared I was to find a love quite like this. My marriage has challenged and healed parts of me that I knew were broken, but my friendships have cradled parts of myself that I didn’t know were aching.

When you grow up in a broken family, friendship holds a level of importance that most people will never understand. You know that the only hope for acquiring the unconditional love you were supposed to be born into is to find it in people who choose to love you that way.

For a long time, that hope felt like a far-off dream. A wish made on stars and held solely by faith, but nothing solid. Kind of like the existence of mermaids or the efficacy of good luck charms.

Female friendships can be a rather tumultuous thing. I’m the first person to talk about divine femininity and the power of womanhood, but I cannot deny that some of the most vicious and cruel people in my life have been other women who I thought were my friends and family.

When I look back on many of the friendships I have had throughout my life, I’ve come to realize that I had a lot of friends who didn’t actually…