I’m sitting down at a dining table. It’s dark out and the restaurant has dimmed lights. Appetizers have come and gone. Drinks have multiplied far beyond what we had planned. This always happens with them. Our lives detangling in one story after the next. It’s how we make sense of it all, even if the people next to us can listen.
This table, surrounded by some of my closest female friends, is my absolute favorite place to be. The intimacy, the private stares, the secrets, and the laughs. This is amongst the only times where I can truly let down my guard. To let people in. And not just any people, them.
There is a relentless nature to good female friendships. It’s the kind of love that shows up even when it is not invited, even when it hurts, when it has wronged us and when we ourselves do not feel worthy of love. The older I get, the more I realize how wrong I was in looking for validation from boys and men that never wanted to understand me, who I really was, rather than seek refuge where I had always felt safe.
We must have been 18. We were sitting in a car in front of my childhood home, where my parents still live. I had just confided in my friend what had been going on, about two years before. The screaming, the abuse, the belittling, and the final exchange that convinced me to let go of a terrible relationship.
“I had no idea it was that bad.”
Her eyes were fixated on the car carpet and filled with tears. A portion of my pain had been transferred to her shoulders. To her teary eyes. The weight I had been carrying deep in my back loosened its grip. It had become something I shared with someone else, no matter how painful it was.
The women in my life don't fit neatly like a puzzle. They don't come from the same place or share the same origin story, but together, they create a foundation that I am convinced is the reason why I am still where I am today. Why my world still manages to go round. Their friendship is the most enjoyable and compassionate kind of love I have in my life.
It’s not my mom. It’s not my partner. It’s not my family. It’s them. It’s always been them.
These are people you aren’t obligated to have in your life when things go sour, these are ones you choose. A pact you only get to do a few times in your life. Romantic love is fragile and unstable when compared to this. These friendships evolve with you. They grow with you. They ground you, check you and push back when you need it. It’s the ability to be accepted and loved for all that you are that still gives me goosebumps.
There will never be enough texts, calendar invites, birthday parties, funerals, jobs, tears, hugs, screams, or disagreements. There will never be enough time to fully explore the depths of female friendships because just when you think there is nothing more to give or receive, the good ones, prove you wrong. Believe in what you may, but I pray that I never live a life where this love is not part of it.
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