Girlfriend season: My life's greatest love story

Lasting longer than my marriage, across decades and distance, the bonds I have with my women friends are the ballast that keep me afloat. They are my home.

Photo by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

Nine years old, I’m on my knees, my face pressed against the back windshield of our Plymouth station wagon, tears running down to my chin, wailing. As my father slowly drives down the street where we’ve lived for the past five years, my best friend Barbie is running after the car, her face also tear-stained. It is my first heartbreak. I am being separated from my best friend. I do not know how I will survive this. I look until we turn the corner and Barbie is out of sight.

My mother arranged a surprise visit from Barbie a couple of months later but we were shy with each other. The bond that felt invincible to me fell away as I made new friends and no doubt Barbie did as well. We lost touch.

This however is an aberration for me. I am like a bulldog with my female friendships, fiercely holding onto them through the decades. Friends from elementary school and high school, friends from college. Friendships I’ve made and nurtured in all the places I’ve ever lived: New York, Boston, Maryland and Washington, D.C., Stockholm, Malta, and Florida. In recent years, especially during the pandemic and in online communities like Substack, I’ve made virtual friendships that feel just as deep as the ones I’ve made in person.

My friend Margareta in Stockholm used to proclaim “It’s girlfriend season!” when the far-flung friend group would gather each summer to reunite. I like to think I enjoy girlfriend season all year long, every day of my life. Lucky me.

My women friends are without a doubt my life’s greatest love story.

This weekend the beauty, solace and joy of female friendship (so much laughter!) is fully with me as I enjoy a reunion on the East Coast of Florida with a group of women I consider my “soul sisters.” Three of us live in Florida with one in Chicago, another in Canada and the sixth in Australia (our full sisterhood gathering awaits in August when our Aussie sister meets us all in Nashville). We range in age from 51 to 64.

Like Barbie and me once upon a time, Jenn, Katie, Shirley, Julie and Michelle and I are inseparable. We speak to each other on Marco Polo every day. There is literally nothing we don’t know about one another’s lives. We’ve seen each other through breakups, divorce, the death of loved ones, the lonely times and the celebrations. We share the everyday with lots of laughter, coaching each other through life’s minor and major shake-ups. We end every video with “I love you all” or “I’m so glad you’re mine.” This is the third reunion of those of us in the US and Canada. If this friendship should ever unravel, which is unthinkable to us, it would be the worst possible heartbreak.

A reunion of the Soul Sisters in Stuart and Jupiter, Florida.

The six of us met through an online sobriety program called Sober Sis, “a sober-minded sisterhood” founded by Jennifer Kautsch and offering a 21-day reset challenge for women wanting to examine their relationship with alcohol. I joined Feb 1, 2021 and have been happily sober ever since. The best part of the program was the use of the Marco Polo video chat app which placed a cohort of about 20 of us in a single group where we could leave videos sharing about our lives and our struggle with alcohol and get support from the others.

While sobriety was the objective that knit us together, the fabric of our friendship is far deeper than that today. Now we are everything to each other, cheerleaders and best friends and the ones who will give each other a good kick-in-the-pants if we’re languishing in self-pity or mired in indecision. We don’t get away with criticizing ourselves. We are each so beautiful to the other women, even if we can’t always see it for ourselves. And isn’t that what we all need?

“Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses... swapped back and forth and over again.”

—Michelle Obama, Becoming

I am grateful for my Soul Sisters. I know our bond will remain strong even as I move across the ocean to Barcelona next month (in fact, our next reunion is already being planned for that fabulous city). I’m also excited to be closer to my long-time girlfriends based in Europe, the women who were my ballast in the 18 years I lived in Sweden with my Swedish ex-husband, raising our daughters. That includes my oldest friend, Barbara, whom I’ve known since I was 12 years old and my mother encouraged me to call “that nice girl Barbara” and invite her over to play. It is through Barbara that I came to meet my ex and live in Sweden. Destiny and my women friendships are inextricably linked.

My two daughters are of course the greatest love story of my life. We’ve been able to find that beautiful balance between our maternal and daughterly roles and the kind of unconditional support that best friends give one another.

With my daughters at a family weddding.

My friend Sheri once paid me the greatest compliment when she said that from observing me she had learned how to be a better friend. When I asked her to explain, she said it was not only my tenacity in nurturing friendships but also the generosity: the ability to listen and to give of myself as well as receive love and support from others. She noticed that I prioritized my friendships, not letting too much time go by without making a connection. She said that even when she means to be attentive to her friendships, a lot of time can go by without acting on her intentions.

I appreciated having her reflect back what she sees in me. Isn’t that what others are to us, mirrors? Sometimes we don’t like what we see but when we do, it can be a lovely acknowledgement that the way we are living our lives is in sync with our values and priorities. We are living intentionally. And my women friendships are certainly among the greatest priorities of my life.

I invite the great Maya Angelou to have the last word in the opening of her poem, “Alone:”

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN! LET’S CHAT! Below in the comments, please share:

What has been your experience with female friendships?

How have they supported you?

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