Today is International Women’s Day and I dedicate mine to the wonderful Female Friendships I’ve made along the way.
When I was a child, I remember waking up very early for school and occasionally finding one of my mom’s best friends sleeping on her bed or quietly having breakfast by herself. She sometimes made small talk and I didn’t bother why she was with us and how she got to our home at such an ungodly hour. Eventually, my mom sat me down and told me that her best friend is a “battered wife” and at times had no place to go. I didn’t know what battered meant back then and I remember my mom joking that my Tita was always covered in butter all the time.
I didn’t really get to understand the value of that conversation until I got older. Of course, I know what battered meant now but I also have a deeper understanding of how sacred Female friendships are.
I didn’t really get to understand the value of that conversation until I got older. Of course, I know what battered meant now but I also have a deeper understanding of how sacred Female friendships are.
Female friendships are more than just having brunches and gossiping while drinking colorful cocktails with tiny umbrellas on them (or taking trips to the toilet together). They are the unexpected 2 am phone calls that involve so much crying. The random visits that become a week-long couch take over. The plate number they save in their notes when you get into a shady cab and the follow up message asking if you got home. It is the 11th like on Instagram and personally, the Shakey’s thin crust garlic and cheese with extra beef (and nothing else!) that arrives just in time for your torrent to finish downloading.
It is finding refuge in another woman – in a familiar face and the sound of her voice and in the warmth of her hands and her willingness to share your sorrows and victories and the life that happens in between.
I find it so selfless how one can freely give a part of herself away in the hopes of having another draw strength and courage from it. Female friendship just gives and gives and gives until the giving find its way back to you.
There’s actually a certain mystery to it that men cannot understand. I had two male professors who told me they shut their phones of at night and suggested I do the same. “But what if a friend calls you and needs help?” I asked. They told me that never happens and I immediately thought about my mom’s best friend and how it could have been so much harder for her if nobody picked up.
I have accumulated so many life-long female friendships that I will always be beyond grateful for. I haven’t been in a physically abusive relationship but without a doubt, all life’s challenges: the deadlines, the heart aches, the rejections, the health scares, the existential crises and miscalculated leaps of faith were so much more bearable because I didn’t have to go through them alone. I am happy to have threads of my life unravel to intertwine with all of yours and I celebrate these bonds today!
To my wonderful friends, thank you for being the women that you are!
I raise my glass (with a tiny umbrella) to you!
