Committed to Sisterhood: April - December 2010.

If I have ever claimed that I didn't think I was a comfort eater then I was wrong, terribly wrong yet terribly good at self-imposed neuro-linguistic programming. Today was a day where I felt hurt and my gut instinct was to eat myself stupid. However, I did not indulge in that initial response.

Instead, I pulled myself together enough to spend several quality hours with my family and resolve that the rest of this year would be dedicated to friendships. In fact, not just to friendships but specifically committed to Sisterhood, the friendship of other women, from today until the end of the year.

For years now I have felt almost shut out of my sisters lives because, at least I feel, they think I will judge first and be their sister second. Simply being their sister first is my priority but again they choose not to see that.

I invited my sisters to go out that night and they decided that they did not want to go even though both indicated earlier that they would. They dropped this on me late in the afternoon after babysitting and the like had already been arranged and I was at a point of getting quietly excited about it.

I knew what I had invited them to do with me was not necessarily their 'thing' - it was a production called 'Stations of the Cross' (rated MA) and was being performed in the city. In fact, I had expressed as much over coffee to my Mum - that I appreciated that they would let me be 'artsy' with them for 20 minutes of their lives. The plan was to then go out for gelati, which I'd shout for them putting up with my long unquenched desire for theatre, not at Cibo apparently as one of my sisters had another venue in mind - I don't recall where.

So, what happened?

I am not sure exactly what happened that they chose not to tell me their change of plans until last minute but apparently it's my own fault and I am to blame (according to their account). One claimed they never wanted to go and that she never said that she would only go if the other sister went. I agree, she didn't say that but she did say, "I don't want to go if it's just us". So I suggested friends which she chose not to invite, in the end only leaving time to work in the plans for another sister to come because if she didn't go too then it was off.

So I worked it out with the sister. I don't deny saying to the other sister, "If you don't go then your sister won't either". At that point in time it was true because all her friends either 'had plans' or were heading to Easter camp. So this sister agreed and suggested a 'better' location for gelati afterwards and we agreed to go there afterwards.

Somewhere in there I became the awful sister who tried to 'make' her sisters spend twenty minutes doing something they did not want to do in the name of spending time with them. Yep, only the most evil of sisters would do something like that and deserved to be punished by being insulted and snipped at too.

Of the times when we have spent time together outside of family events in the last several years I cannot recall ever doing something with them that I did 'want' to do because, for me, it was not about what we did but rather about who I was spending the time with. Kind-of-like those father and son camping trips that always go wrong - you do it because it serves a greater purpose than the activity in and of itself.

It is also a situation where we actively look for ways, if they choose to let us see how, to support their needs. To resource them financially, to provide transport to them or their goods, to joyfully feed them and their friends without obligation, and to be there to help wherever needed or even just to hug. That, however, aside.

I realised a few things later that day. That first, I can not expect my sisters (quite typically Gen Y) to see past the stupid 'if it doesn't make me feel good then I won't do it' attitude to do anything that I may be interested just for the sake of spending time together. No, but if all parties involved will enjoy it except me then that is fine.

Recently, the Fringe Festival drew to a close. That would have been something great to go to together. Instead of trying to organise something myself only to be shut down, like the year before, I waited on my sisters. They never asked what I might be interested in seeing (with or without them) but, rather, one insisted that she wanted to just take a couple of my very young children to the Garden of Unearthly Delights without me. Yep, like a slap to the face, I was told that I was not important and that she was only interested in spending time with my children and not myself or my husband. Ouch!

Second to the 'must feel good' requirement and because of this attitude (that comes across as pure selfishness) although I have been back in the city for over two years I realised my sisters know very little about my interests, my passions, my goals, my hopes or my dreams. To them I am only the labels that they choose to ply on me and there is nothing to me beyond this. Yes, my lifestyle means I am busy a lot of the time but it also means that I really, really enjoy indulging in my 'me' things - those interests, passions, goals, hopes and dreams when the chance comes.

It would have been so great if they could have indulged me in this and be happy for me even if it is not their 'feel good' experience. I think I have hit a point where I need to accept that they won't now and probably never will. And even if they wanted to they would always feel they were being asked to do something that they apparently are not prepared to do because they choose not to spend that quality 'us' time together to find out what I like in the first place.

So, what does this mean for my life?

I love my sisters and I want the best for them. I look at the generation that precedes them on my maternal side and see them following the same path of not fostering family relationships unless it is 'convenient', something that is a strong contrast to the paternal family values we have - the values that I appreciate in my life.

For me now, it is the realisation of how important good friends can be in place of family disappointments. Good friends will do things they don't want to for each other. It is not just what my friends do for me but the reciprocal nature of doing the same in return not because you have to but because you want to - you want to do things that bring joy to their lives. That your happiness also comes from bringing them joy too even if it means going out of your way for them from time to time.

This is the essence of true Sisterhood and I am now gearing myself up for spending time with women who have shared and varied interests to myself. To spend time with them chatting, sharing, working, playing, laughing crying, hugging - all the things that bring perspective to your life and make it worth living.

It has been a true blessing that a true Sister came out of the woodwork last night to invite me to weekend women's stuff (no boys allowed) and I appreciate that so, so much. Please expect more in the remainder of this year!