THE POWER OF WOMEN AND FRIENDSHIPS

by Susan Florence

In sharing we heal, we endure, we grow strong.

“Girls just want to have fun.” And we do. We laugh at ourselves when we are together. We are free to just be ourselves -- to dance, to sing, to let go. Let go of the hairdo, the makeup, the pretense. It doesn’t really matter with girlfriends because it’s okay to just be who you are.

That was until six of us planned to meet for a weekend in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I wasn’t prepared for the power of what was about to happen -- the power of communication among women friends. This potent energy women give each other when they can be real and share their truth can heal. In the deep honesty of sharing who we really are a fountain of strength opens. It had been 20 years since high school and we had all gone to different colleges after graduation. Somewhere along the way, we all married and had children. Our lives completely changed as easily as our youthful times together vanished.

I didn’t know so much would have changed since the last time we were together. It was a wedding shower Julia had given Sharon. On the surface, everyone’s lives seemed almost perfect. Julia, who had been a debutant the summer after high school, served stuffed artichokes on her mother’s china on a table that was beautifully set with silver and linen. Lola was dressed in a sari and wearing lots of beautiful gold bangle bracelets. She had married the son of a diplomat from India, a guy she met at Berkeley whom she said looked like Omar Sharif. Her life seemed exotic and romantic to me. She and Barb were both very much into their roles as wives and mothers. They both had weddings and babies in college. I remember thinking how strange it was that we all seemed to be “grown up.” Or acted like it.

Years later, our weekend reunion in the mountains would be much different. I flew into San Francisco and met Sharon. We drove to Santa Cruz together, talking non-stop. Ever gorgeous, Sharon brought enough clothes for two weeks and we laughed knowing she’d be in sweats the entire weekend. But only Sharon would pull off looking glamorous even in sweats.

Welcomed by blue “forget-me-nots” blooming everywhere, I walked up the winding path of soft scented redwood needles to the rustic log cabin. As we entered, we dropped our stuff as easily as the years falling away. We hugged each other. The cabin, like its old timber was a well-worn place -- authentic, not decorated. It had taken a long time, like the toy rabbit in the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, for it to become real.

We brought gifts for the altar of our friendship:  food, wine, music, flowers. I felt honored to have the experience of growing up with these friends and being with them now. This time, we didn’t have to brag about our kids, our marriages or our careers. We didn’t have to eat on fine china. Too many years had passed. We had lived beyond the dreams we had grown up with. We too, like the rabbit and the cabin, could be real.

The evening took us into its magic. Outside, a forest of majestic redwood trees was standing watch. Inside, the candlelight cast dancing shadows on the walls. We sat around a stone fireplace on mismatched comfy furniture drinking wine and remembering people, places and times -- hilarious only to us. As the flames danced wildly, we opened up to each other and began to fill in the gaps of the years since high school.

Lola told us about her breakdown. I was sorry that I was not there when she was in the hospital. She did not have the romantic international life she thought she would have. She lost herself in being a subservient wife and during the painful separation and divorce, became addicted to sleeping pills.
Lola and I met in the first grade and survived Catholic grammar school. We had our first Holy Communion and confessions in the second grade. We knew the different sins and which ones would land us in hell or purgatory by the third grade. We learned about the dangers of being with boys (but began noticing them anyway) in the fourth grade. We learned to French kiss from Lynnie Malone in the fifth grade, fell in love with and recited the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay in the 6th grade, and dyed our hair fluorescent pink in the seventh grade. In the eighth and final year of St. Thomas, Lola was sent away. At the time, I didn’t know why. I didn’t know that her mother, who was divorced and working as a traveling salesperson, couldn’t afford a house. She put Lola in boarding school with her older sisters and moved in with a friend.  Two years later, her mom got an apartment and Lola came back to our high school. Her dad committed suicide that first year she was back, but we never talked about it. 

Barb revealed to me that she was a recovering alcoholic. She said that she felt she had not “been there” for her two boys, who were both drug addicts. I thought of her in high school -- the homecoming princess, so beautiful and smart. I remember her dad was blind but it didn’t seem to matter. He worked and kept up with his three children. He had a sweetness in him. I’ll never forget his gesture of taking us girls and our dates to a “high class” restaurant before prom. But what would set the stage for Barb later on was her mother. She was an alcoholic. I remember being shocked and scared by her appearance – so skinny, unkempt and her loud slurred words.

I understood and accepted what Barb was telling me. I didn’t say, “Oh, I’m sure you did your best for your boys.” I learned during a painful separation from my husband a few years before to “accept.” I learned that we become strong not in spite of the way things are, but because of the way things are.
It sounds like a therapy session that night. I guess it was. But there were no licensed psychologists, only us friends. The honesty was empowering.
I didn’t know what to say to Julia when she confided to me that her dad had abused her. I couldn’t believe it! He was our favorite dad. Always smiling and funny, he was there to take us to games, drive us in pep rallies, and seemed to genuinely care. We didn't know he couldn't hold down a job and Julia’s mom, proud and dignified in her manner, never let on that there was a problem.

We helped Julia that night as best as we could, suggesting how to deal with the anger, hitting pillows, having the rage. But it was a blow to us all.
The sleeping loft ran around the living room on the upper floor; beds were scattered. Maria and I talked a lot before we went to sleep. Both with degrees in art, Maria designed textiles in San Francisco and I was writing and illustrating greeting cards and stationery products. We talked about our moms. Maria’s dad had died and her mom was lost in a deep depression. Maria had found her the day she tried to take her own life. She tried to save her mom, but she wasn’t the mom Maria remembered. Her mom, as she knew her, was gone. It was hard for her to accept that she lost both parents when her dad died.

I shared with Maria my childhood experiences with my mom. I always wanted to be like her  -- sweet, kind, giving and loving. She completely ignored my dad when he lost his Italian temper and yelled at her or us kids. Mom didn’t want our childhood to be like hers. There would be peace and happiness, no sadness or fighting in our home. I don’t know when the antidepressants started. I just know she never gave up. In looking to mom as my role model, I have in turn struggled with being able to be myself and have the truth of my feelings... my own anger, sadness and hurt. 
The morning was glorious. Sharon was up first making coffee. We sat outside catching the warm sun, eating desserts. Soon we found ourselves in the small upstairs bathroom doing each others hair and makeup. Just as the sun streaming through redwood branches outside in the forest, we shared the glowing light of being “girls again."  Mostly we laughed.

We walked on the beach that day. We sat on the beach. We talked. We communicated in the amazing language of “women speak,” completely understanding conversations that never started or stopped. Our stories of our life journeys were woven together that day; the colorful threads created a tapestry of meaning.

I was empowered by that weekend of sharing. Each of us felt safe enough to stand in our truth.  The secrets of our childhoods and the painful parts of our being human were spoken. In heartache as well as in laughter, we offered up our experiences. We trusted each other with being real. We gave each other the courage to accept the way things were in the past; the way things are now; and to move on. I felt like we experienced the mysterious sacred of our lives. Like a crucible, where metals are melted down, life gives us severe trials, as we are made whole. We can endure what is on our life path and grow spiritually because if it.

On the flight home, feeling alive with energy and inspired, I started writing about the journey we all must take to find our self. The words flowed.
“There is only one journey you ever have to take; no one buys you a ticket or tells you when to go. This most precious and painful passage is the journey to yourself.”

This writing was published in an illustrated gift book, which still sells today. It is called Your Journey ...A Passage Through A Difficult Time.
It’s been many years since that weekend at the cabin. We still get together at least once a year. Mostly we laugh. Our lives continue to change. Barb’s boys are handsome men completely drug free.  Jules confronted her dad who was living alone in a room in San Francisco. He admitted in pain that he too was abused by his parents. Sharon recently got married on the beach in Maui and wore a fitted coral sundress with flip-flops that said on the bottom “I love you.”  His said, " Just Married." And Lola still wears her gold bangles.

Yes, there are always challenges -- in our relationships, our careers, in taking care of our parents and saying goodbye to them. There are challenges in having held our children close and now letting them go. And though we encounter wrinkles, menopausal confusion, and all the parts of aging, facing them together provides a constant stream of humor. Through it all, we know we can call on each other anytime we need a friend. And we do.

Sometimes when we get together, I bring a CD my daughter made that she titled “Girls Songs.” We dance, because it’s true -- girls do just want to have fun.

(Susan Florence is author and illustrator of The Journeys Series, a collection of giftbooks to help us find meaning along the journey of our lives. Two tiles, Your Journey and Having Friends in Our Lives provide comfort to those in search of support and celebrate the gift of having friends in our lives. Visit www.SusanFlorence.com.