Ghosts of Christmas past haunt me in June...

"Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is
in the very here and now,
the practitioner dwells
in stability and freedom."


The above quote is attributed to Buddha. I try very hard to follow it and live in the now. Trouble is, yesterday keeps finding me. And for the most part, that's been good. Over the past year, I have reconnected with some very important people from my past. My BFF from middle school onwards, a lot of great friends from high school, even my middle school crush. What I found was that I still got along with these people just like I did back in the day, even finding my old crush still worthy of swoon (seriously, he should be glad I am happily married or I might've flown to New York and thrown myself in his path, just like I used to "accidentally" be by his locker after fourth period every day in the seventh grade). I have found several old photos and mementos I thought long gone. Some of them I held onto, others I had to let go, for in addition to the constant revisiting of old memories and friends, I have been on a quest to clear the clutter from my life.

It seems like the Universe is trying to tell me something. Every time I turn around, I am running into old friends or seeing signs to clear clutter. For example, I'll turn on the TV only to see a special on clutter coming up, or I'll get an email from my book club, and the featured book will happen to be about clutter and how to get rid of it. I am a big believer in synchronicity. I take these signs seriously, and I have been systematically cleaning and clearing, both materially and spiritually/emotionally. I do this because I realize now that if I don't, I won't have room for anything new.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard from my cousin Kerri that my sister wanted to contact me. I've never met my sister, but when I was a little girl, I wanted to meet her more than anything in the world. I wanted someone to borrow clothes from, someone to play dolls with, or produce interesting nail polish experiments with. For the most part, my friends filled this role, but most of them had their own sisters and I knew that our relationship was still different than the one they had with their sisters. For all practical purposes, I was an only child. My brother is 12 years older than me, and he was always more of a dad to me than anything. All the things that dads are supposed to do, my brother did. He taught me to ride a bike, how to drive, and he gave me away at my first wedding. I still call on him for advice on car repairs and such. But he never would assist me in the nail polish experiments.

Where was my dad, you ask? Drunk. We pretty much only saw him when he wanted to take his frustrations out on someone. And that's why I never met my sister. About ten years before my mom and dad met and mated, my father was married and had a daughter. But after dealing with Dad's drinking and abuse for so long, his first wife took their daughter and left. Dad never knew exactly where they were, which was smart on his first wife's part, because Dad was not above stalking to terrify someone. Eventually she remarried and her new husband adopted my sister. All I really knew about her was her name and birthday. Every so often, Dad would call one of his first wife's relatives and put me on the phone to beg for information. That finally stopped when I was around nine years old and refused to do it anymore, both for my sake and my phantom sister's sake. She didn't want to be found and I didn't blame her. I would've felt the same way. I hadn't thought about this in years; I guess you could say I relegated it to the clutter pile.

So now I finally have the chance to have a sister. But do I want one? The crass cynic in me wonders why now? Does she need a kidney? What if I don't like her? What if she's really horrible? What if she doesn't like me? What if she thinks I'm horrible?

I told Kerri I would call her because I needed to chew on this a bit. But I procrastinated (one of my worst personal flaws, hands down) and didn't call (sorry, Kerri!). Then yesterday I received two emails back to back from Facebook: a message from my brother asking if we could meet him for dinner because he was in town for business, and a second, a friend request from someone with my sister's name. I accepted the dinner invitation, and then went to see what I could see on my sister's profile. There wasn't much info there; it looked like she just opened an account with Facebook. So now I know her name, her birthday, and where she went to school.

I discussed it with my brother (who, for the confused, shares a mother but not a father with me, so my sister is not his sister) at dinner. He said, "it's better to regret contacting her than it is to regret NOT contacting her." As usual, he is right. So after posting this, I will accept the friend invitation. And hopefully, this will be a part of the past I am glad to bring into the future.