I recently read a disheartening article about relationships being dismantled because of today’s divisive discourse. People are abandoning friendships, family members are disowning one another. People are cutting ties with those who were once near and dear to them. This article was heart breaking. But I understood it. I’ve spent time in this space. Can I be honest? I recently found myself googling “Can Americans move to Canada?” I have retreated to my own corner, unfollowed people on social media, stopped talking to people I once cared about. And this was just last week. After a recent 24 hour downhill spiral where I found myself completely dysregulated after being sucked into the social media black hole, I had a series of events happen that opened my eyes and my heart. I want to share because I know many of us are feeling this way regardless of which corner we are currently standing in. The day I found myself spiraling, a dear friend of mine came over. She dropped by unannounced with a pink gift bag. It wasn’t my birthday, just an ordinary day. Inside was a decorative sign that said, “Great women support great women who support great women.” When I read the words, my eyes teared up, we hugged and said we loved each other. She was in and out of my house in under five minutes, but her gesture made an enormous impact. It stopped my downhill spiral dead in it’s tracks. She was thanking me for supporting her. However in turn, I felt loved and supported. I felt her friendship. Great women support great women who support great women, not because we’re all exactly the same, but because as women we have a connection. We’re connected by a deep desire to love and encourage and believe in each other. We just are. I know you know what I mean.
This past week I lost a friend to complications from pneumonia. She left us way too early. She was a wife and a mom and was way too young to leave this earth. Several years back we had been on a girls’ work retreat together. As a group of us were sharing memories of our friend this week, every single person said the same thing… they felt they had grown so close to her during our retreat. As I thought about my friend, I realized that what made her so special was that she wasn’t afraid to connect with people. To be her true self and share her story, her real life story, not her highlight reel. We talked about her big heart and how she made people around her feel seen and heard and cared out. Collectively our hearts were broken. We are connected in grief because of this loss, but also connected in joy as we shared memories of our friend. Even though we are all different in many ways, we are also united, bonded together.
Last night a few friends and I got together to celebrate a birthday. I was super excited to see my friends, but to be honest, I was having a little anxiety that politics might come up in our conversation, knowing that some of us don’t see eye to eye. However, politics couldn’t have been further from our conversation. Instead our time together started with one of our friends reading this quote, “A good friend knows all your best stories. A best friend has lived them with you.” Yet again, my eyes welled up with tears. Here I had been worried about us discussing politics when our friendship is so much deeper and bigger than that. We’ve lived our stories with each other, and some of our stories are really hard. We spent the evening talking about what’s really near and dear to us… our children, our families, school, our careers. Our real lives that we are living day in and day out. This is what connects us, what binds us together.
The experiences I’ve had this week have me thinking. As women, most of us spend the majority of our time thinking about and caring for the same things. We care about our marriages, our children, our health, our careers, our friends and loved ones. Many of us were raised in different backgrounds with different beliefs. We have different life stories, different influences. It’s true we don’t see eye to eye on everything. But we see eye to eye on a lot. We have a choice. We can retreat to our corners and abandon our relationships or we can lean into our friendships and find common ground. I’m not saying that every person is going to be my cup of tea and that setting boundaries in toxic situations is not important. I’m also not saying that we shouldn’t stand up for our beliefs because we absolutely should! What I am saying is that friendships are important. Our relationships are important. Loving people is important. Connection is important. We have a choice. I am choosing to lean in to my friendships and my relationships. Because you know what? We need each other. In our darkest hour of need or when we are over the moon with joy, we are not going to be calling a politician to sit with us, pray with us, or pop the champagne with us. We’re going to be calling our best friends. They are going to show up, and we are going to show up for them.
