So. This is where we are now. Some of of us are depressed and all of us are anxious. Some of us are divorced or wish we were. Some have lost parents, while
others have lost children. We all agree that marriage and parenting are nearly impossible.
Sometimes we are too much. And sometimes, we are not nearly enough. We want to
learn how to hold both.
Friends. Confidants. A soft place to land. Fellow warriors. Shoulders
to cry on. And boy do we cry. A lot. We aren't the professional stuffers we
were in our youth. We refuse to hold it all in and pretend we've got it all together.
We've come to believe that feelings matter and strive to hold space for them. We
laugh, too. In that loud, can’t-catch-our-breath kind of way that women aren't
supposed to.
Over coffee in the garden, these women remind me that I’m
worth holding and fighting for. They stay with me when I can’t stand to be with
myself. They carry hope for me when mine is spent. They challenge me. They
inspire me. They encourage me. They help me without fixing me. They offer me
the grace that I so often deny myself.
We don’t always agree. True friendship doesn't have to. We
are not clones of one another. We all bring something different to the table.
We journey together; helping to work out the puzzle pieces
of our separate, yet connected lives. We remind each other that our voices matter, even when those voices are little more than a whisper.
That even when we feel lonely, we are not alone. We help each other remember
that we are all part of something so much larger. Our stories are all different
and yet the same. We travel alone but somehow together.
We walk this bumpy road of becoming more real. Returning to
ourselves; the selves we used to be before the world told us to be somebody
else. We are softer now, and more grey. We are more settled into our own skin. Skin
that sags and droops, growing more lined by the day.
Life etches itself into each and every wrinkle.
As though we are unfinished.
Like the Artist is still working.
Like the Velveteen Rabbit, we are becoming worn and nubby
and real. All because we love and are loved. We raise a glass in honor of friendship, and we
have never been more beautiful.
“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.”
― Masaru Emoto, Secret Life of Water
― Masaru Emoto, Secret Life of Water