The women who remind you…

It started with a weekend that felt long overdue, and was a celebration of reaching a mutual milestone in life. 

And it reminded me how much I've been missing the kind of connection that can't be felt in a text.

It's easy to feel like connecting is something we do every day: talking in a group text, leaving a handful of likes, maybe even adding a comment or two. Or, better yet, the occasional coffee or dinner when one single, solitary date on the calendar just happens to be free for all involved.

But this past weekend reminded me how false that idea really is.

I spent a weekend with two of my oldest friends. These were the first girls I ever stayed up late with, whispering secrets across sleeping bags. In fact, they were the first true friends I ever had, way back from grammar school.

We hadn't had this kind of uninterrupted time together in decades. Instead, life, like it always does and rightfully so, filled the space with everything else: building careers, raising children, dealing with family situations, and for me, rebuilding after divorce, while simultaneously discovering my true Self. 

And so, over calamari and candy corn cheesecake, something inside me felt liberated and able to breath again. 

Because three women saw each other for who they really are, beneath the years and everything life asked of them. 

We laughed until our faces hurt. We cried over the spoken and unspoken pains that had followed each of us through the years. We talked and lamented about what feels broken in the world, and what we think is still worth repairing.

It wasn't just a weekend of catching up. For me, it was remembering a part of myself I hadn't visited in years. Quite honestly, maybe even seeing this part of myself for the first time. 

The weekend is lingering with me, not because the karaoke was amazing, (because I couldn't convince them to go) but because of how ordinary it felt. How genuinely human. And how much I realized I've been missing that kind of intimate, shoulder-to-shoulder time with other women.

I intend to reach out to my closest friend and "demand" that we make a promise to spend more intentional time together. More coffee dates that turns into dinner. More weeping on each other's shoulders when it calls for it.  More laughing over squirrels and shared anxieties and pretending we've got it together for at least an hour.

I know what real connection feels like, but this kind of connection with other women, at least women my age, is something I've never really had, with the exception of my "fence buddy," as we affectionately call ourselves. It's something I've shied away from, for fear of judgment or being looked at as "too much" or "too different." Or quite honestly, too broken, to the point where other women see me as "that trauma-affected hot mess."

There's an essay I read recently that I literally could have written myself. The author described joining a book club she had sworn she'd never attend and realized once she started talking with the other women, that it wasn't really about books at all. 

It was about being seen and heard through all the noise in this world that disguises itself as connection.

She went ready to share her literary analysis and found herself surrounded by women sharing stories of families being estranged, heartache, loss, and reconciliation. What she thought it would be, a commentary on pacing and character arcs, turned into being welcomed into a new circle of belonging.

She compared our lives to ecosystems. That they're crowded with the overgrowth of commitments and noise that literally choke out what really needs sunlight. And she talked about pruning, a concept I'm very familiar with and have written about previously. 

Her words hit a chord because she said what I've been feeling. That we've grown so accustomed to being constantly connected that we've forgotten what it means to feel connected. 

For years, I've been in a kind of survival mode. Working as an employee, parenting kids and parents, caregiving for others, trying to build a small business. Saying yes to everything and everyone because what else could I do? 

But what if I was wrong? What if all this time I spent "doing" for others instead of "connecting" with them missed the point of it all?

Pruning is both cutting back and making room for what matters. So you can breathe again. And reconnecting with my childhood friends reminded me of what remains underneath all that noise.

A truer version of myself. 

Who isn't checking her phone while trying to have a conversation (unless it means looking up the definition of perseverate).

Who doesn't measure her worth in efficiency.

Who feels at ease in genuine and authentic friendship.

Who is ready to stop performing in a life the way I think I'm supposed to, and start inhabiting the one that's already mine.

And this means making room for real connection with others.

Because when that's done, you get to spend time with three amazing, kind, and inspirational humans who remind you of who you are.