Sophia zips up the back of Anna’s dress and steps back. “I like it, but I don’t love this for you.”
Anna agrees and Sophia unzips. Again and again until we find the “one.”
I’ve been dreading this day for years: dress shopping for my daughter’s upcoming Bat Mitzvah. Although she loved all the rituals of clothes shopping from toddlerhood—the browsing, holding up a top or a dress up against herself in a mirror, the trying on, the shoes, the transaction—sometime after age ten, it shifted. Dresses gave way to sweatpants and oversized hoodies. Even jeans were too dressy. Too much effort. So ugly and annoying, mom!
School shopping, one of my favorite holidays in my own teenhood, was torture for this preteen. And though I don’t have a hatred of new clothes in common with my kid, I immediately recognize her expression in the mirror. “I’m ugly.” Nothing I can say will penetrate the conviction of self-loathing that seems to arrive at the dawning of middle school and stays with us off and on until our forties.
But today I have Sophia injected into this mother-daughter dance that has played out the same way for the last several years. And with her best Middle School friend, everything is different.
No tears. No harsh self-judgment. She is seeing herself more clearly, through the shared lens of a peer who adores her. That vision penetrates.
I am unbelievably grateful.
These girls have been inseparable since last year. Sophia brought Anna soccer and Girl Scouts. What Anna brings is far less structured: simply, she will do anything in her power to make Sophia giggle. Less simply, their bond is thick, formed within the complex structure of hormones, cool kids, social media, boys, school, and divorce.
Too soon, they’ll face more complications. There will be driving tests and curfews. Drinking. College. More social media. More cliques. Higher stakes. Who will be the first to be so transfixed by a boyfriend that she pulls away?
We haven’t made room in today’s culture to talk about these friendships, how serious they are, and how much we depend on them. Over time, I’ve forgotten the details of my first heartbreak, but I will forever feel the hot sting of my first girl friendship break up. And I’ll always carry a deep unbreakable love for my middle school friends. Even the ones who broke my heart.
Especially them.
We learn to love through these early friendships. We learn trust, betrayal, jealousy, power and generosity. Girl friendships lay the groundwork for our most intimate relationships because, I’d argue, that’s what they are. Girl friendships not only prepare us for the romantic relationships in our lives but serve as the salve from them. They are the places where we get support, protection, understanding. They are vital.
I have never known peace without them.
When I was covering a story about homeless female veterans, the bulk of whom were sexual violence victims, I learned the horrific reality that in the military women need to report sexual assault to their commanding officer, who has the jurisdiction to decide if a crime has been committed and if further action is to be taken. The validation of the victim lies within the chain of command.
The crux of this issue was this: the perpetrator was more often than not the actual direct report. Meaning: he had the singular authority to decide if the crime should be persecuted.
Spoiler alert: they did not. Which left the victims to finish their service with a lack of trust in the institution they dedicated themselves to. It caused ruptures. It caused psychic trauma. It made women distrust the military, the structure of it, the hierarchy of it. Men.
Themselves.
And sometimes other women—although I don’t know that I can fault the military or even men, for that. (And I really want to.)
What makes women distrust each other? My relationships with my girls have been the most complicated, the most nourishing, the most honest and true and real than any others I’ve ever had. I give myself over to a female friendship in ways the men I’ve known could never dream (because it doesn’t involve boobs. For the most part.)
I trust. I love. I value. I open myself. I feel safety in a complete maternal web that only exists on the plane of female friendship. I love with a ferocity I usually reserve for my children. I forgive and believe and strive to understand when I feel that I don’t.
I love.
Love.
I’m not anti-man. I have loved and will love a man again. I’m a daddy’s girl for life and a proud boy mom. But let’s face it: if we only leave it up to men to hold the keys to our safety and comfort and trust—if we leave it to the men to build and maintain the integrity of the institutions we value, we are fucked. And if we betray each other, if we look away, or excuse, or judge or intentionally hurt each other, we are worse than fucked.
So I will work hard to be a vessel of safety. A harbor of love and truth for those of who, like me, understand how fragile our positions in the world can be and how walking around can feel treacherous and unstable. I will love like I’ve been loved. And at times, how I needed to be loved.
That’s the institution I believe in. That’s the one they’ll never break down on me. If I can’t hold up the women I love in light and honor and truth, the terrorists win. And I won’t let them. Although I am no soldier, that is a hill I would die on.
Delivering a basket of laundry to her room this morning, I found Anna in front of her full-length mirror, twirling in her new dress, loving her reflection.
“I love this for you,” I say. The dress too.
I just found the thing to send to my middle school bestie for her birthday. Thank you, she's gonna love it.
True, because often another woman knows WHY they need to step in to save us before we know ourselves. Empathy is our power.