What would women do without friends? It seems to me that we wouldn’t be as interesting, perfect, or playful, if we hadn’t gotten together to accumulate this wonderful energy of ours at least once in a while. I notice the way friendships change with years, how we start paying more attention to certain qualities, and that we definitely have less time to hang out, but then, in an instant, we become 20 again, especially, if we start talking about Sex and the City or a love affair from college days. Basically, I’m talking about the flashbacks to days past, to our history, and a vision forward to who we’re now and have yet to become. Because true friendship is love without compromise and a relationship that lasts forever.
Photo: Zen
Photo: Zen
Photo: Zen
I’m thinking about friends I had when I was twenty. It’s an age when you go out simply to do something interesting, and out of habit, I suppose. It’s not that we didn’t have a good time then, but when you’re forty, you start hanging out, because you need to feel close to someone you haven’t seen in a while, you need some advice and you use lunch break to let a friend open new horizons and show you a different way. When you’re twenty, you hang out with your girlfriends every day, so perhaps you don’t appreciate these hours of freedom and laughter as much, because you take everything for granted. Now, I know exactly how precious these moments are and how time passes by ever faster, partly because I’m a mother. So now I also know we won’t stay up ’till three in the morning, because the next days will be full of responsibilities, so the time we spend together is much healthier and well spent; we don’t need yawning at a bar, just a good cup of coffee and a pastry shop with a view of the sea. Or the male passers-by, whom we still check out sometimes, even now.
Photo: Zen
Photo: Zen
Photo: Zen
By now, that weird symbiosis is gone. You know, the way we used to coordinate in advance, whether we’re going out in heels or not, if we’re going to put on makeup and pull our hair up in pony tails, or no makeup, because everyone of us has a well defined personality now, so there’s no more need to share personalities of others. I think that by the time when you’re 40, you don’t even want to. It’s also our time to share, which anti-wrinkle cream we use, what works when you get a migraine, how our next generation is doing at school, as well as where to buy the best yoghurt. There is no talk of love, which comes and goes, because all our loves are more or less stable, and there is also no time for phone apps, we don’t even know any! Yes, we’re old! How wonderful! I love it, when I hear about people without Facebook or Twitter, that is an alternative way to live, or perhaps it’s the real way, one in which you don’t care that somebody, whom we barely even know, baked cookies or bought a new pair of jeans. Virtual or real? I’m still one for the real. And less pouty.
Photo: Zen
Photo: Zen
Photo: Zen
But then again, we’re also able to turn into teenagers and we don’t need much to make the jump into the past. We see a picture of Sarah Jessica Parker in a magazine and we instantly remember all her adventures. So much laughter! In comparison to what we see today, this benign show was considered erotic back then, but my darling ladies, those four women had such charm and strength that some of today’s characters can just go hide. Similar is true for the top models that Donatella Versace gathered round for her show: even if Cindy is 50, the others can’t match. Sorry, that’s just the way it is. It makes me want to organize a pajama party, take out all the Sex and the City DVDs (I swear, I have a lot) and binge watch with my friends ’till three a.m. Impossible? Hmmm, I wouldn’t be so sure.
Photo: Zen
Photo: Zen
Photo: Zen
When you’re forty, you are able to make compromises. You really do and moreover, you also know them well and finally gain the understanding that it’s difficult to live without them. That’s why it’s good to close an eye, or perhaps even both and find harmony, because it only has a positive effect on us. My compromise is to love unconditionally, although I often disagree, and I can appreciate our differences much more than I do our common ground, because I don’t expect us, friends, to be alike, I like the fact each of us is one of a kind and so very interesting. When I was 20, I wasn’t sure I can expose my heart in the palm of my hand, but now I realize that if I don’t the friendship isn’t true. So I share my thoughts and emotions and these women surprise me, because we’re all so similar to one another and so fierce.
Photo: Zen
True friends are sisters. The stars you catch in the sky and hold in your heart. Even if you don’t see them often, they’re there, and every time you take a look, you realize you’re carrying an endless source of light inside you. And again I think, how amazing it is to be a woman.
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4 thoughts on “Friends at forties”
While you may enjoy working the booth at your kid’s soccer game, it’s not the same as going to an event where people are discussing issues you love.
To be a whole person, I needed to remember that I still existed inside the chaos of new parenthood. Also, I think there may be something to having kids after 35 that is truly identity-shifting in a way that’s different from having kids at 22.
No one ever said growing older would be easy; personally, I just never knew that I’d have to revisit building friendships as an adult.
If you want to find other people who are looking for friends, you have to be open to meeting them. Practice striking up conversations with people you know but are not close with.