“Life is about who is holding your hand and, I think, whose hand you commit to holding.”
I read this this weekend, in between cold swims and garlic lunches. I read this as I was reunited with old friends.
It’s a question that becomes more piercing with every year that passes. As we slowly find our place, slowly find our tribe, whose hands do we keep on holding? Who are we making time for? Who are we letting in, planning with, travelling to?
It’s a blessing, to have those hands holding yours, to fly and be flown towards. To create moments big or small, to share a lot of our daily routine – and some of the extraordinary.
Friendships are some of our greatest love stories – and female friendships even more so, perhaps.
But sometimes, there’s that hint of judgement. You do it, too. The expectations only those who really know each other can have, the comments only those who’ve been there throughout can make. The clumsy biases, the outdated opinions. You’ve walked through the fire together. Nobody needs the ashes.
Woman to woman, we’re better than that.
Those hands we want to keep holding, we should take them as they are. They might hurt, they might bleed, they might want different things. And that’s fine. You can show up for each other, you can give and receive, and be radically different women. I’m learning we can.