Rediscovering the Sisterhood

Sometimes, you just have to let yourself love what you love. Not all the time. Eating all the Doritos I want would not be healthy. But sometimes, you really do need to allow yourself to love what you love. I love The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants book series.

This Saturday, after leaving a morning spent at a house of prayer I tried to read the philosophical book I have been carrying around. I almost fell asleep. On a beautiful, sunny Spring day reading this inspirational book outside, I almost fell asleep. I realized that I have been reading a lot of "good" books, books about spirituality and urban injustice and topics I studied in college classrooms. And while those books are great, I do not love them. And while those books are important, all I wanted was a book that didn't need to be read with a dictionary next to me or too much intellectual attention. Cue The Sisterhood.

I first read the series in middle school and have re-read each many times since. The academic world does not hold most popular modern fiction in high regard so as an English major, my enjoyment of the books became my secret, guilty pleasure. A couple of months ago I found out that a fifth book had been written to follow the original four. This last book told the story of the characters ten years later. And on this Saturday, all I wanted was a "fluffy" easy read about four fictional characters that I love.

I went to two different libraries until I found it and then happily read it all in less than 12 hours. The Sisterhood had grown up, and I felt as if I had grown with them. Within a few chapters, my favorite character had tragically and unexpectedly died, a loss that jarred me as much as it did the women in the book. Ann Brashares, the author, somehow managed to describe the grief  I feel at Ethan's death in perfect words. How different the world seems. How I suddenly question all perceptions of myself. How I just miss him.

Ann also perfectly described my own sisterhood, that group of women who I have grown into myself with. Within hours of finishing the book, I received an e-mail from a dear friend serving in El Salvador and had a phone conversation with another friend in Florida. I went to bed that night grateful for the people who love me at my highest moments of life and still love me when my sense of self is in fragile pieces all around me. Even miles and time zones away, we are so connected that when my spirit is hurting their spirits feel it too, despite the fact that we have not seen each other in over six months and will not see each other for many more months to come.

Tonight, a group of De Paul University students joined us for dinner to hear what our service year has been like, and I realized that my sisterhood is also a brotherhood. I am part of a personhood that laughs together, cooks together, questions together, fights together, hurts together. And above all, we live together. We love together. None of the "good" books have been talking about the worth of that. It took a "fluffy," non-intellectual novel to remind me. And that, I love.