Biologically, I have four sisters I never met. By adoption, I have a sister who did not support my parent’s decision to adopt me (she was only 2.5 at the time but still very vocal and physical about her unhappiness with the situation). When I started blogging, it was because I wanted to find a community of women where I would fit in, where I would feel like I was one of them.

I didn’t just find a community, I found a sisterhood.

I’m no longer close to my sister-by-adoption. Instead, I have blog sisters. Some of them know how much they mean to me, and some don’t realize that to me, their friendship is as important to me as a family relationship.

We don’t share parents. We didn’t grow up together. And yet, to me, my online sisters feel as real as if we had the same blood running through our veins. I always imagined that sisters were best friends who also shared a parent or some other kind of family situation, but I’ve had to create that sister relationship from people I met online. Does that make them any less important to me? Heck, no.

My online BFF Lisa has been there for me during some truly low times in my life in the two years we’ve been friends, and has cheered my successes as often as I’ve cheered hers. Just knowing that I can look for her on IM and ask her a question, tell her something that just happened, get her advice, rant about something frustrating, knowing that she is as there for me from 3 hours away as she would be if she lived next door, that is what makes her my sister.

In September, Kelby Carr of Type-A Mom is holding the Type-A Mom Conference in Asheville, N.C. Advertiser and supporter The Sister Project is running a contest to give one lucky winner an all-expenses paid trip to the conference, as well as two additional prizes. This post is my entry in that contest, which asks entrants to fill in this blank-”You know you’re a sister when…?” Because I don’t have a physical relationship on which to base my feelings about sisterhood, my contest entry is about how you know you’re a sister to someone you met online.

You know you’re a sister when you hug someone at a blog conference and it feels like hugging family. You know you’re a sister when you want to help younger bloggers succeed by giving them advice, and when you seek the advice of older bloggers in hopes they will help you. That’s what sisters do, right? You’re a sister when the only room available at the conference has a king size bed and you feel perfectly comfortable sharing it with your best friend-slash-roommate.

In real life I am not a sister. In the online world, I’ll take all the sisters I can get.