By the time a woman reaches her sixties, she’s supposed to have a group of girlfriends. You know the ones. They take trips together, celebrate birthdays at restaurants with enormous tables, and post photographs captioned My Peeps.
I have two close friends. Maybe three, depending on how we’re defining the term.
One lives in another state.
And occasionally, when I see those photographs of nine women laughing around a table, I wonder if I missed something. Was there a sign-up sheet? Did everyone join a club in their forties that nobody told me about?
Because somewhere along the way, I apparently missed the memo.
I see these groups everywhere. Women who have known each other since college, women who vacation together every September, women who somehow manage to coordinate the schedules of eight adults for an entire weekend. I have my high school besties, my first job besties, but I have trouble coordinating lunch with one person, so perhaps that explains part of it.
And I wonder about those friendships. Not because I doubt they’re real, but because photographs have a way of making other people’s lives look wonderfully complete. Everyone is smiling. Everyone appears delighted to be there. Nobody is arguing about where to eat or who forgot to make the reservation.
Of course, I have no idea what happens when the camera goes away. Maybe all nine women are genuinely close. Maybe three of them haven’t spoken since the last gathering. Maybe one of them spent the entire night wondering why she agreed to come.
The photograph doesn’t tell me any of that.
It just tells me nine women were together long enough for someone to take a picture. And yet, somehow, I occasionally find myself using that photograph to measure something about my own life. Which is ridiculous when I think about it.
The other part of this is that I actually like being alone.
I like my quiet mornings. I like sitting outside with my coffee, watching the sky change colors. I like wandering through gardens without feeling like I can’t stand in front of a particularly beautiful flower because I can spend an unreasonable amount of time photographing the same rose from six different angles, and there’s nobody standing behind me asking if I’m finished. And for the most part I spend my days surrounded by teenagers. If you’ve never spent seven hours in a high school, let me assure you, there is no shortage of human interaction. Someone always has a question, a problem, an opinion, or an urgent need to tell me something that could absolutely have waited until tomorrow.
And then I come home to my own teenager.
Fortunately, I happen to like that one.
But I still treasure my quiet time. Sometimes I enjoy it so much that I wonder if I’m a little strange. Other women seem to be organizing dinners and weekends away, and I’m perfectly content to stay home.
Is that weird?
Maybe. But I suspect there are quite a few women who feel exactly the same way and just aren’t saying it.
It’s wonderful. But there’s this persistent suggestion that enjoying your own company is something you should eventually overcome. Get out more. Join a group. Meet people. Make plans.
Why?
I’m not opposed to people. Well, not all people. But I don’t necessarily want to spend every available hour with them.
Sometimes I go somewhere, enjoy myself perfectly well, and still feel an enormous sense of relief when I get home. I take off my shoes, settle into my favorite spot, and think how lovely it is that nobody needs anything from me for the next hour. That doesn’t mean I had a terrible time. It means I like coming home.
And I think there’s a difference between being lonely and being alone, although we don’t always give women permission to make that distinction for themselves.
There have certainly been times in my life when I’ve felt lonely. I don’t think anyone gets through six decades without experiencing that particular ache. But loneliness doesn’t necessarily disappear because you’re surrounded by people. I’ve felt more alone in a room full of people than I have sitting by myself watching the sunrise.
What matters, at least to me, is knowing that there are people I can reach for when I need them.
Not necessarily nine. Not even five. Just the ones who know me. The friends who don’t require a lengthy explanation because they’ve already heard the first seventeen chapters of the story. The ones who can tell something is wrong by the way I answer the phone. The ones who know when I need advice and when I just need someone to agree that the situation is completely absurd.
Especially that last one. I appreciate good judgment, but sometimes I need a witness.
And I hope I’m that person for them, too.
Because friendship isn’t just about having someone who will show up for you. It’s about wanting to show up for someone else. It’s remembering the appointment they were worried about, asking how their mother is doing, or knowing that sometimes the best thing you can offer is company without conversation.
I think about the difference between the people I’d invite to a birthday dinner and the people I’d call from a hospital at eleven o’clock at night. Those aren’t necessarily the same people.
And that’s okay.
Some friendships are wonderful because they’re easy and light. Some are built around shared interests, a workplace, or a particular time in our lives. Others become something deeper, something that survives years, distance, disagreements, and all the changes that come with getting older.
They don’t all have to serve the same purpose.
Maybe that’s what I’ve come to understand about friendship at this age. I don’t need every relationship to become a lifelong bond, and I don’t need to turn every pleasant acquaintance into another obligation on my calendar. Because I can spend an entire Saturday happily by myself without wondering whether I should be doing something more socially acceptable.
I still enjoy seeing those photographs of women gathered around enormous tables. I hope they’re having a wonderful time. I hope their friendships are everything they appear to be. But I no longer want to look at those pictures and assume there’s something missing from my own life.
My friendships may not fill a table for nine. They might not produce an annual vacation photograph. And if matching T-shirts are a requirement, I’d have to seriously think about it, unless I am designing it.
But I know who I can call when life becomes difficult. I know who will laugh with me when something is ridiculous and who will sit with me when nothing is funny.
And I know whose calls I’ll answer.
Maybe that’s the better way to count.
Not how many people are in the photograph, but how many people know what your life looks like when nobody is taking one.
All photos posted on Sage Lotus Press, are my orignial photos.