Letter 33: Shifting & Showing Up
Letter 33: Shifting & Showing Up
When we value friendships in our 40s ~ Friendship Series, Part 3
Welcome to the third installment in our Female Friendships Series!
The last two weeks we’ve heard from a writer (one from each decade) sharing about her friendships with women. Some share responses to questions we asked, others share a view into a meaningful female relationship. So far, you can read Nabil’s letter about her 20s and Emily’s letter about her 30s. Today, we launch into our 40s!
You know when people come into your life and instantly, you hope they’ll stick around? I (Molly) felt that way about Jess Uhler, 46, as soon as I met her. It could have been our English major kindred spirits or how I was so taken by her eye (she’s an incredible photographer!)—either way, I immediately wanted to know more about what she thought and how she saw the world. While we no longer live in the same part of the country, I’m thankful that her beautiful images keep me connected to her from afar. As a mom of four beautiful children, I look to Jess often for her thoughts on parenting and guiding children through this crazy world. She never takes herself too seriously and shows through her images and words that deep reverence for art and beauty are integral to life.
Today, we have the honor of reading Jess’ thoughts on friendships throughout her life and what, as a woman in her 40s, she’s taken away from these relationships. Her perspective is highly relatable for me as a 41-year-old woman, but I believe you may feel the same, no matter what age you may be. —Molly
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
Annie Dillard
As I survey the landscape of my friendships over the last four decades, I am thankful for each season of relationships, whether they still exist or have morphed into something new. I understand now that the friendships worth pouring into and showing up for, the ones that have lasted and are dear to my heart are the ones where we’ve walked through fire together. There is a bond that comes through pain that can’t be faked.
When I was in college, I described myself as a girl who got along better with guys. I didn’t have any sisters. Growing up I was often deeply hurt by my female friendships- caught up in the elementary drama of who was “in” and “out” every week. Fawning for the attention of my best friend, hoping she would choose me after school instead of her other best friend, Stacey Parra, the most beautiful girl in the sixth grade. The girls at recess had their hierarchy. It seemed to be based on who had the coolest Swatch watches and Esprit bags. And who could do a cherry-drop or suicide off the bars. It was superficial and mean, and I was often on the outside for my naïveté of the latest horror movie, or my thrift store clothes and off-brand, non-Guess jeans. Of course, I longed for acceptance and approval, and at the same time, I knew that a sense of belonging in this club was fleeting and surface-deep. Being a sensitive, creative type, I knew these weren’t really my people.
I had some deep friendships through middle school and high school. We were inseparable. A big gang of us, mostly all on the swim team, would eat lunch together every day, practice together in the afternoon, hang out at the Harding’s house for pasta and movie night before meets. We were bonded together through the tragic car accident of one of our own, baptized into a world of adult pain as we were still on the verge of becoming adults ourselves. I have maintained a friendship for the last two decades, albeit over distance, with one of my best friends since freshman year of high school. But for the most part, those friendships have waned as geography and life seasons have distanced us.
The friendships of my young adult years and through college, have faded as time has gone on. People I thought I’d never lose touch with, who shared many nights of cramming for philosophy tests or editing the school lit mag together. After graduating, social media has helped me stay connected in some sense. Maybe we exchange Christmas cards or send messages on birthdays. But I wouldn’t call these relationships true friendships. Proximity seems to matter most as life became about managing a household of young children and burgeoning careers.
Friendships that sustained me through my young mothering years came quickly and intensely. We were all thrown together through preschool co-ops, park days, and library reading hours. We kept each other sane over snacky lunches at the park or children’s museum meetups. We organized meal co-ops, babysitting co-ops, watched each other’s kids at nap time so we could get out of the house. We depended on each other, and our kids’ (as well as our own) social lives were deeply intertwined.
As our kids have gotten older, as they’ve spread out to different elementary, high school, and now colleges those ties have weakened as well. It was a sweet season to have a whole group of other young mamas to lean on, to learn together, to figure out how to juggle life and marriage and work and motherhood, to share the best easy dinner recipes or favorite events for preschoolers. But our kids have grown and evolved and so have we- having less time for the non-proximate as our days have filled with new work or interests and don’t revolve around the shared caring for small children.
What I know about friendship now in my 40s is that it’s essential. It’s also often hard. The friendships of youth or early family life, though very dear, are often built out of necessity and proximity.
Seeing another mama every day at school drop-off and pick-up makes it easy to maintain a continuous bond, to be spontaneous with coffee dates or dinner together. The friendships that have lasted, the friendships that I’ve forged and cultivated in midlife have something else to sustain them- a depth that comes from walking through adversity together.
My closest friends have been through the hardest seasons of life with me, and I them. We have history. They’ve seen me at my most needy, or despondent. They’ve cared for me when my husband was deployed and I had three young children. They’ve listened to me tell my side of a fight we just couldn’t get through. (They also know and love my husband, and can call me out when I’m wrong.)
There is a reckoning that comes in midlife. An unraveling and undoing, a time when one must take stock of one’s identity, marriage, relationships, priorities. Our role as mothers shifts, the ways we show up in the world, the possibilities of what that even looks like opens up before us as our children’s most taxing demands lessen. If we are self-aware and seeking to live intentionally, we grow to know ourselves and what we need more of, what we can’t abide anymore. It can be mildly disorienting or absolutely disastrous.
The friends that have stayed, the friends I’ve stayed with, have weathered these heavy storms together—the ones who make you ask: Is this really the marriage I want? What do I do when I don’t like my kids? Myself? Who even am I anymore? The friends of midlife ask hard questions, are willing to listen to hard answers. Sometimes it is not convenient or easy to maintain these friendships in the midst of life’s busyness, but the richness and depth of being known by each other, and, maybe, more importantly, being deeply safe with each other, takes years to forge and is worth the work.
I’ve never related to the idea of being married to my best friend. I love my husband deeply and share more intimacy with him than anyone else. But there are roles he can’t fulfill in my life, conversations I’d rather have with a girlfriend first. My friends can reflect me back to myself, speak life into my weary soul, remind me to be compassionate to myself, or call me to be a better version of myself. The most meaningful friendships I have now are the places I can share my brokenness, be raw and vulnerable, weak. Almost as importantly, that vulnerability is reciprocated. I’ve had a handful of relationships dry up completely when I eventually realized the person on the other end never seemed to be willing to share their hearts in any authentic way, instead, kept it guarded with small talk and sarcasm. Where there is no mutuality, there is no fertile ground for building trust and compassion.
I know after 22 years of marriage that time and trial forges something stronger than the lustful passion of youth. And sometimes the longer you know someone, the more you can see your differences, the things that annoy you, the things you wish they would do differently. Be they friend or lover, at some point, you aren’t carried by waves of new and exciting emotion. At some point, you might grow bored. Annoyed. Frustrated.
But choosing to keep pouring in, keep pursuing and choosing the other, truly learning to appreciate the different lens with which each friend looks is where the marrow of friendship is found. Each friendship is a feast. And just like in a marriage, you are never really done knowing someone. You will always be in a dance of self-revealing and discovering the other. Choose your friends wisely and there will always be a vein of gold to mine.
From where I sit I can only hope that these deep friendships last well into our old age. I can see us, in our 50s, planning girls’ weekends, throwing baby showers for each other’s kids, the ones we held as babies. Perhaps in our 60s we finally have time to take a week away together in Europe like we dream of. I hope we stand by each other’s sides as we bury spouses (surely we will outlive them?).
The work of friendship in your 40s takes a lot of energy when it can be easier to submit to the inertia of time and schedules, work, and family obligations. This year it’s been harder than ever to stay connected, but it won’t always be this way. We are beginning again to gather together in each other’s homes, happily eating and drinking while the kids entertain themselves. For now, we will keep our Marco Polo and group text game strong, meet up for walks and coffee dates.
What I know for sure is we were made for community, made to know and be known. And friendship is one of the best places that can happen if you are willing to show up wholeheartedly.
“It may be…that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”Wendell Berry
In gratitude,
Jessica Uhler
P.S. Have you experienced a “reckoning…a taking stock” of your own friendships? What came forth out of that experience? Consider sharing your thoughts below in the comments.
Previous Posts from the Friendship Series
Nabil and her 20s:
Emily and her 30s: