It has taken me a life time to explore, cherish, and cultivate some women friendships. As a child I grew up not trusting many women because the only good woman role model I had was my grandmother. I was severely abused by my own mother, which left an indelible mark on my ability to really form close female bonds for the first half of my life. The worst effect was not being able to even trust myself. I had to forgive my mother before I could move on.
Through the love of a close woman friend (other than my sisters) I have learned the art of loving her, trusting her, and through that love I have learned how to risk being myself, and loving the kind of person I am every day. Through the eyes of love I have been able to see me more clearly and know that I can trust myself because I am a good, strong, caring, and compassionate friend to those I choose to spend my time with. Her counsel has been healing in more ways that I can describe. She is my first woman friend that has shown me non judgement, unconditional love, reminds me of how far I’ve come and how blessed I am with my "husband". Because of her I have gone on to form another woman friendship this past year which is beautiful and burgeoning…
In becoming an inspiration, I found another kindred spirit. I took a chance and shared myself and stories with her, my strengths, as well as my insecurities and she shared them back with me. Through the power of our pens, every day, we wrote on the blank page to each other lifting each other up as teachers and as mothers. We have both risked sharing our vulnerabilities as well as triumphing in our joys tooting each other’s horns as we went along. She is a strong, compassionate, good hearted woman just like me…the torch of friendship keeps getting passed along as a result. I have cried tears of joy through the power of her pen getting me through to the other side of this pandemic. She credits me, but I let her know that our friendship is a mirror…we can only see the beauty in each other that first exists within ourselves.
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