Friendship

“Friends are the flowers in the garden of life. Beginning with a seed of trust, nurtured with laughter and tears, growing into loyalty and love.”

Navigating the minefield of friendship has always been a hardship for me. I’ve had friends come and go through the years and some friendships that have lasted since grade school, but I have never truly learned how to grow my circle of friends. As time has gone by it seems to have shrunk instead of increased. Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for those that continue to be in my life although I wonder at times what I’ve done to deserve their loyalty.

I am true to my Virgo nature, once a friend always a friend - loyal to the end, unless the trust is broken and then the intricate threads that wove us together wither and break. While we still remain friends it is never to the extent we once were. I have a thing about trust; real deep-seated trust. Over the years I realize that I’ve grown cynical and isolated instead of outgoing and engaging in activities that would lead me to make new connections and now I find myself lost and at times alone.

My view of women and friendship has evolved from someone to hang out and go partying with to someone you share aspects of your life with and support each other through the different seasons you encounter in your life’s journey.

Not one to bog anyone down with my issues I’ve pretty much just held it all in and expressed what was just beneath the surface but nothing with any real depth to it for fear of rejection or abandonment. I always felt like I was supposed to be there for them but that my life had to be pretty close to perfect in order for things to work.

I never really realized until much later in life (like now…) that it is a give and take and that I have to share with them just as much as they share with me. Not wanting to be pushy or clingy I could go several weeks without calling or talking to my friends but devour the details of their lives when we did catch up while divulging very little of my own. Eager to please and ready to help at the drop of a hat but emotionally aloof is how I would define myself. And yet I know that there is more to friendship than this.

I pray that I will learn to reach out more often, to share more deeply, to trust implicitly and forgive as I have been forgiven for the slightest offenses that would normally send me retreating in an effort to preserve myself.

May He send me a circle of friends that will embrace my nuances and help me to break down the walls of isolation and allow me to blossom under their tutelage as I strive to be a better friend. May the friendships I do have flourish to even greater depths and may they know that I love them deeply, cherish them always and want nothing but the best for them today and always.

“A friend loves at all times…” Proverbs 17:17

Together

" I advocate that every woman be a part of a circle that meets at least once a month or, if you can’t do that, once every two months or every four months. But you have to have a circle, a group of people – smart, wise, can-do women – who are in the world doing their work, and you need to meet with them as often as you can so that they can see what you’re doing and who you are, and you can see the same. And you can talk to each other about the world and about your lives in a circle of trust and safety. It’s crucial. It is crucial for our psychological health and our spiritual growth. It’s essential." Alice Walker

"If we’re by ourselves we come to feel crazy and alone. We need to make alternate families of small groups of women who support each other, talk to each other regularly, can speak their truths and their experiences and find they’re not alone in them, that other women have them too…It makes such a huge difference." Gloria Steinem

The idea of a group of women coming together to share is so foreign to me. So scary and unthinkable but over the past few months it is something I have been hungering for. It is a need I have that has to be fulfilled. It’s only taken me forty-seven years to realize that this life was meant to be shared with other women and to embrace that knowledge.

In all honesty I intentionally stayed away from women because I have been hurt through the years by friends and instead of forging ahead embracing the situation for what it was and learning from it I slowly built up a wall keeping everyone out. Living this life alone for the most part, walking out this journey all alone. Now as I look around I find that those walls that I built to protect me have actually isolated me and left me by myself.

I am so hungry for that connection again and am struggling to find it. I have found that I am not alone in my situation. There are so many of us that have been hurt, been too busy, too isolated and too afraid to venture forth and say I need or would like to have a circle of friends that I can share life’s experiences with. But as Alice and Gloria stated it is crucial and makes such a huge difference in our lives.

Sharing is what our ancestors did. It is how they got through some of their toughest times and yet here we stand going it alone. Trying to do it all on our own and failing miserably because we have to learn lessons that others have experience and knowledge of that could make a difference in our lives if only we took time to sit down and have a conversation.

When is the last time you had a gathering with your girlfriends?

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12)