The Intense Bravery of Friendship
You know those movies where the protagonists are women of a certain age? Where they sit around drinking until their tongues loosen up? Then they titter dirty little secrets about sex, or lack thereof, and the predominantly female audience is expected to titter along at the women and say something akin to oh, my, goodness aren’t they a hoot? I want to be just like that when I get old.
Dearest Hollywood, that is not the real world.
When you dare to reconnect, this is what I've learned about female protagonists who season with age.
Yes, life includes the wonderful places you've visited and still intend to see. It's about your children and their spouses and the incredible grandchildren they've gifted to you. It's about what you learned at work, the impact you made, the impact you continue to make, the legacy you have left behind.
It's also about how you've rolled around in the dirt. How you've been plowed under by the avalanches. The pain, the sorrow, the trauma, the unbearable depths of despair where at some point you recognized the sole alternative is to claw your way out of the trenches, only to discover life's reality: you will need to do that dayafterdayafterday if you intend to survive.
Sitting on couches, around tables, I have looked into the faces of those I have known and loved in the past who are brave enough to make their way forward, back into each other's lives. We begin with the intention to pick and choose what we will share but there, suddenly, the dam bursts, the souls parts and say, okay, here. We say, I'll let it out because I trust you to carefully ease in my pain. I believe you will hold it for me alongside yours and that will make us all stronger, at the least, in this moment and maybe even tonight when our heads hit the pillow and we remind ourselves just to take that first cleansing breath.
Life is ragged, brim full of unasked questions, questions left forever unanswered. Its sharp edges cut deeply and prick us to move—forward, slide backwards, sideways, slip slidin’ away. Ragged edges shape, inform, design. When we’re able, they’re learning tools. When we’re not, they simply are.
That, it feels to me, is the intense bravery of friendship. Thank you, my intensely brave friends.
Dearest Hollywood, that is not the real world.
When you dare to reconnect, this is what I've learned about female protagonists who season with age.
Yes, life includes the wonderful places you've visited and still intend to see. It's about your children and their spouses and the incredible grandchildren they've gifted to you. It's about what you learned at work, the impact you made, the impact you continue to make, the legacy you have left behind.
It's also about how you've rolled around in the dirt. How you've been plowed under by the avalanches. The pain, the sorrow, the trauma, the unbearable depths of despair where at some point you recognized the sole alternative is to claw your way out of the trenches, only to discover life's reality: you will need to do that dayafterdayafterday if you intend to survive.
Sitting on couches, around tables, I have looked into the faces of those I have known and loved in the past who are brave enough to make their way forward, back into each other's lives. We begin with the intention to pick and choose what we will share but there, suddenly, the dam bursts, the souls parts and say, okay, here. We say, I'll let it out because I trust you to carefully ease in my pain. I believe you will hold it for me alongside yours and that will make us all stronger, at the least, in this moment and maybe even tonight when our heads hit the pillow and we remind ourselves just to take that first cleansing breath.
Life is ragged, brim full of unasked questions, questions left forever unanswered. Its sharp edges cut deeply and prick us to move—forward, slide backwards, sideways, slip slidin’ away. Ragged edges shape, inform, design. When we’re able, they’re learning tools. When we’re not, they simply are.
That, it feels to me, is the intense bravery of friendship. Thank you, my intensely brave friends.
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