I cried in the shower this morning. Hot, desperate sobs under the steam. I’m ripping off Band-Aids and pulling out boxes stuffed with trauma. Some days I really have it together, but for months now I’ve just been…raw. Unhinged. Unbridled emotions run amok. All the careful compartmentalization is coming undone and suddenly I am forced to feel all the things I avoided to survive. This week, it has been pressing on me even harder.
Out of the shower, I pulled out my phone and tapped the chat with my friend’s name.
“I’m making good on my promise to be honest – I am having a rough week.”
“I don’t want the watered down version of my friends. Anything in particular making you feel this way?”
I told her. The closet of trauma I kept locked away now unlocked in therapy, random boxes spilling out around me with the monsters I kept hidden following me through my house, lurking while I worked. The fear of being alone. The sorrow over a broken heart. The doubt I will ever be enough. The conviction the darkness won’t go away.
“What are you doing next weekend? Can I come visit?”
She knew.
We’ve been locked inside marriages to alcoholics, we’ve been navigating grief and single motherhood. We suffered our own unspoken hell for too many years and never said a word of it to each other. Even though we were going through the same things. When we realized the horror the other one lived, it was like coming home. I see you and I will not turn my back on you.
And now, the promise to be honest. And the promise to always show up for each other.
When she needed me, I ran to her without a question. If she called me right now and said I needed to come, I would drive the 3.5 hours to her house and sit with her all night.
And today, she knew I wouldn’t ask, and so she made the plans for me.
“I heard you needed some extra love. I’m coming to stay next week.” Another friend. The Hens alerted that one of these cluckers needs support, and here they were. My phone buzzing. The sisterhood assembles.
“I hope you don’t mind, I told them you needed us.”
I cried as a voice note from still another friend popped up on Instagram. The energy healer, responding to my questions about how to protect myself as I go through this journey of opening doors I kept locked tight so I could survive. So much love and support, advice, her voice purring comfort into the note from hundreds of miles away.
And a fourth texted “I think you need titties today.” And there were pictures of hers, gorgeous, voluptuous. Just to make me smile. Because I am straight as a razor, but everyone loves boobs.
I sat on the floor after my workout and sobbed. This time with gratitude. Because how lucky am I, how lucky are we, to have each other?
Every time I found myself in the dark, it was women who came carrying lanterns.
Every time I came to the end of myself and was about to step down into the abyss, it was women who pulled me back.
Every time I felt unworthy, discarded, erased, it was a woman with fire in her heart, who had been there before, who lifted me up.
Every time I tripped and fell in life, it was a woman who helped me back up.
Every time I searched for meaning, for knowledge, for the way, it was a woman who mentored and sustained me.
The woman who invited me to lunch and listened.
The woman who let me sit at her table and cry about my failing marriage.
The woman who opened the wine and talked into the night with me.
The woman who knocked on my door with a wreath and chocolates because she heard I was struggling.
The woman who recognized my potential and spoke my names in rooms with opportunity.
The woman who held my baby and cooked me dinner when I was postpartum and sick with an infection.
The woman who answered the phone the morning after I left my husband, who spoke softly and calmly while I cried.
The woman who reached for me when her world fell apart.
The women who sat in pajamas with coffee at a vacation rental and laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe.
The women who posed with me in bright colored wigs, in carved pumpkin heads, because we are magical bitches and our whimsy is legion.
The woman who whispered “get in there and show them who you are” before a big presentation.
I asked the universe to show me the face of God, and the universe sent me sisters.
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