Friends are family and family are friends
“I love you.” The text said. Suddenly the tears welled and spilled, down my face, splashing onto my shirt and jeans. I could wipe the tears from my face but the wet splotches soaking my shirt were a certain giveaway of my big heart, literally on my sleeve, again. I had been feeling pretty intact lately, despite my newly broken heart. I had to say good-bye to a man I loved, and just because I was the one leaving, didn’t make it hurt any less. I was holding it together, keeping my head up, tears in, until that text. All of a sudden I was overwhelmed, thankful to be loved, thankful to be thought of, and I couldn’t hold it in. Heartbreak and healing and resurrection keeps your feelings boiling just under the surface, swirling around, trying to find their place. I was fragile and strong, a tipping scale looking for the balance, and simple things could tip the scale one way or the other. I was overwhelmed with appreciation for my friend, my badass strong friend, busy with her own life and struggles, who still was there, on the other end of that phone, making sure I knew I was valued. Friends make gratitude so easy to remember, even when you really don’t want to. It was the end of the day, the sun was setting and I was lying on my couch, alone, after a long day of work. The kids were at their dads. I had no date, not with a man, just a date with myself and my fireplace and some bad TV. Learning to take that time, to love yourself, takes practice and patience and time, but it is more worth it than anything else. The deeper you truly love yourself, the more love you have to give. As I love more, I am loved more. And that text that came in was from one of my dearest women friends, wishing me well, loving me, sharing in my love for myself. She was encouraging me, to stay the course of integrity and bravery and self-respect and progress. It’s easy to falter, and slip into negative self talk, to doubt, and seek empty comfort in the arms of someone else. But that is what a band of women is really for. To keep pushing you forward, even when you can’t push yourself. I am loved by a band of women, who I love and encourage just as fiercely. Women who are different from me and different from each other and still, we hold each other up, hold each other together and when we need to, we hold each other to the standards of living we know we each want, but are sometimes, too afraid and exhausted to keep striving for.
What is amazing about a band of women, when you are a single mother in your forties, is that sometimes you don’t even know you need to hear “I love you” or, “thank you,” until you hear it. We spend so much time giving, loving, worrying, driving, nurturing, searching, folding shirts or packing lunches and scraping together gourmet dinners for ravenous teenagers on shoestring budgets, we forget that we are doing anything good. Every day we get up and hold ourselves and everyone around us together. An “I love you” from a woman friend, means more like- “I see you, and you are kicking ass. Don’t give up. You are amazing.” Kids don’t say those things. Mothers do. And sometimes, we really, really need to hear it.
When I was farming, sometimes I would be so beaten down. Beaten down by the everyday, constant battle of trying to live and raise my children well. Beaten down by my ex, by bills, by running a risky business of making food, all by myself. Beaten down by my own doubt in my goodness. Sometimes it would become too much I would just lie down in the warm sawdust in the chicken barn. The barn was a strange smell of clean sawdust and hot shit. Chicken shit all by itself has a stench like the worst most bitter baby diarrhea you have ever had to deal with. But in a barn with 3,000 chickens and tractor loads of wood chips, it almost smells sweet. Just sweet enough that lying down was indeed the most bittersweet thing I could think to do. Reward and punishment all at the same time. Surrounded by all those biddy hens, I would let my hair fall back onto the pack and let the hot shit seep into the back of my head, so disgustingly, and let the chickens cluster around me. They would inch closer, cooing and clucking and chatting with each other about what the hell I was doing. “Why is the grain lady lying down?” I imagine they were saying. “Can we finally eat her? Go on Gladys, you go first. Peck that shiny thing in her ear.” Inevitably one of them would take a ginger peck at my earring. The next peck, if I would allow it would be braver and more voracious. The peck was always complimented with an excited cluck as they thought they were on to something really good. I would just lie there, listening to their conversations, that sort of came in waves of clucks in a very calming fashion, smelling the bittersweet smell of hot chickens shitting. I would lie there and think, “I am literally lying in shit.” Sometimes I would lie there, with a broken heart, or worrying about my kids, or just hating myself for lying in shit and I would lie there anyway, because there was peace. And life. Lying there listening to three thousand females live their lives was humbling and powerful all at the same time. I mean, they lay an egg every goddam day. Every day. They fight for the favorite spot on the roost. They figure out which bitch they need to put in her place and which ones are alright. They know when to stand up and when to walk away. When I would lie there, order would come to me, and strength. After a while I would get up (and go shower) and resolve to look at my situations with the simple attitude of a biddy hen. Hens know when and when not to give their fucks away.
Women friends are there to remind you when not to give your fucks away. It’s a constant battle. There are fucks to give at work and fucks to give with other parents and fucks to give in love and relationships. Women friends will tell you when to go home and love yourself. Women friends will tell you when to get out of your jammies and your head and go dancing, and they will take you. Women friends, like mine, will sneak into your house after your husband has finally moved out and rearrange your bedroom and buy you a new bed set and make your room yours. Women friends will come and gather up your laundry when your washer breaks again because your dog sheds so much it packs the drain with fucking dog hair, and they will wash and fold your laundry and pair your socks and bring it back to you, in new baskets, with a bottle of wine on top. Women friends text you shitty memes and come up with awful, delightful names for your horrific boss. The giving that happens among women friends is almost violently precious. We stand together against other women who are mean, and, unlike a biddy hen who will just peck a bitches eyes out, we kill them with kindness. Women friends send strength to each other all day long. Sending encouragement to my friends, offering the small acts, that’s love. When you get in your head about a man, or your trauma rears is beastly head, a woman friend will tell you to love your heart voraciously and why you should. A band of women is like a flock of hens. We move together, and that togetherness spills down, onto our kids, and they see us hold each other up, and they learn to hold their friends up too. My women friends keep me strong and they help me show my children what it means to be there for another person. Friends are family just as much as family is family. Friends tell you when you are being a baby and fucking up. Our kids see that too. If you are single mother, fighting the fight, and you don’t have the mom flock in your life, open your heart to the universe and let those other mothers who are all around you in, because all of us, are stronger, together.
#strongertogether #friendship #help #hope #strength #love
