SOL21 Slice 14: Women friends

 

I am participating in the

 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOL21).  

All participants are sharing stories about moments in their lives, writing 

 every day for the month of March 2021.

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for nurturing teacher-writers!

I put down my phone with a big smile on my face, and take a quick glance at the time - oh my, that was an hour. So fun!

My girlfriends 

my women friends 

my gal pals

my good buddies

my besties

oh, my, I don't have one word for these friendships, but I know how they make me feel inside - and how essential they have been for me throughout this pandemic. 

I am blessed to have a best buddy from high school and a best buddy from college that have stayed oh so close to me all my life . . . not physically (both live pretty far away) but emotionally close . . . yes, for more than 40 years now. That's pretty special. I have made close friendships since high school and college, too . . . I find myself giving best friend qualifier statements, "my dearest friend when the kids were young," "my bestie from work," "my neighborhood gal pal," well, you get the idea. What do these women have in common? We are truly connected. We always make time for one another. We - without a doubt - have the gift of gab with one another, sharing confidences and taking time to shore one another up when life happens to be hard. 

I hold onto friendships, as best I can. I mean, let's be real, friendships are like romances - they take two people, interested, present, and committed.  One person does not a friendship make! I try my best to reach out and be there for others, and I am so blessed that it has been mutual many times over. 

These friendships have been the soft, healing balm of this pandemic. 

Whether 

phonecalls, FaceTime, Zoom gatherings,

masked walks six feet apart,

long, winding, solitary walks wearing headphones, to talk,

texts, emails, 

letter-writing,

I have been held and lifted by my women friends. They have provided me sanity, patience, reality-checks, honesty, empathy, laughter, a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, escape . . . everything I need. 

What would I do without them?  

"Women understand. We may share experiences, make jokes, paint pictures, and 

describe humiliations that mean nothing to men, but women understand. 

The odd thing about these deep and personal connections of women is that

they often ignore barriers of age, economics, worldly experience, race,

culture - all the barriers that in male or mixed society had seemed so difficult to cross."

- Gloria Steinem