I don’t think my parents are aware of the fact that they have a third child.. I do however have a sister. People choose their own family, by that I mean my friends.
I have a weird way of meeting my new family members, I thought when I was reminiscing about the first time I met my siss..
It was the year 2010 as I finally managed to get a job working for a big insurance company. I had a small group of colleagues with whom I got along really nice. At my right was the customer service team. From all the people there you could hear one voice particularly well in the office.. my sisters. Oh dear, what an awful woman, I thought. Talk about miss ‘know it all’. I think she must have thought the same about me, I’m good at that too.
One day siss was transferred to my end of the office. She sat right across my table. She used to stare at me and I would think, you’re so not my kind of favourite person. The only thing we had in common was the fact that we both smoked. I used to run into her in the smoking room, but that didn’t make our relationship any better. Until one day, we both ended up in the office garden and stood next to each other. One word was the start of a long series of conversations. Soon we would be inseparable and the manager used to joke and say “look the sisters are back”. That’s how my siss ended up being my siss.
Funny how this relationship started exactly the same as it did with my other best friend,by exchanging one word (it was a different word this time).
One word caused the transformation from ‘not my favourite person’ to ‘family’. I think I need a running in to a person to start a deeper connection and one word seems to do the trick. We both left the company at the same time, but our friendship was strong. We shared our happiness and our sorrows. In dark times the other would be there to shine some light in the darkness.
Dear Ingrit van Nieuwenhuizen, I’m glad that we bumped in to each other. I admire you for your strength to keep going on the bumpy road of life. I hope to have many laughs and cries with you. We are more the same than we could ever have imagined that first day we met.. 
