Sharing the Writing Journey

I’m feeling a little reflective today. October 11th is my sister-in-law, Melissa Chesley’s, birthday. Mel is a writer, too. You can check out her blog HERE. In fact, it’s what we learned early on we had in common.

We met in one of the oddest ways. One day, I got an email from her introducing herself as my husband’s brother Larry’s girlfriend. Never one to have had any real communication from any of Larry’s previous girlfriends, I was a little surprised that this one would email me like that. But we started talking. Shortly before this, I had written a brief history of my first few years as a mom. I sent her this 100 page document as a way of introducing myself. Since we both liked to write, and read, it seemed the easiest way for her to get to know me—especially since, at the time, I was NOT one to talk about myself. At all.

We’ve never lived close to one another (that we knew of lol), but pretty much from the beginning we’ve been close. I remember once telling my husband that Larry had better not mess this up because I was keeping Mel. She’s mine. But Larry’s a bright guy. He married her, and now she’s ours forever.

Mel and I write similar things. Both of us see no purpose in being graphic with our writing—she more so than me—and we like good, clean fun. We’ve taken different paths to get where we are now, and we like to share what we learn along the way with one another. It’s one of the greatest relationships I’ve ever had. And, it’s kind of cool that I have a sister who’s a pirate. You saw her blog. I mean, it’s pretty awesome.

But Mel and I are much more than what we have in common. We’re sisters, beyond marriage and siblings and blood and all that. I’ve said it before, but I had to get married to get sisters.

The last time I saw her, even though it was crazy early in the morning when I got in from the airport, she got out of bed to sit with me at the table and say hi. We were that eager to see one another. And it was really hard to say goodbye just a few days later, especially after all we did that crazy weekend.

Happy birthday, Sis.