Letter 79: Those Who Walk Us Home
When we embrace love in action
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Hello, hello!
This community on The Learning Curve is pretty special. We come together once a week, collectively read a powerful piece of writing and reflect on it as we go about our days, all over the globe. The joint power of one woman, being vulnerable and sharing her story, instantly unites us—gathering hundreds of women together in story.
Female relationships, whether connected unknowingly from afar, or personally, with the women in our lives, are beautiful, organic things. I loved hearing Emily Fleming’s take on them in today’s letter. She opens up about the endearing highs and the sometimes-present lows and shares how both have taught her about herself and our world. As always, we are grateful to Emily for her brave honesty and willingness to share. —Molly
Click play to hear Emily read today’s letter.
One of the biggest lies I ever let myself believe is that friendship is supposed to be easy. We all know marriage and romantic relationships to be full of challenges, heartaches, ups and downs. Friendships can be undersold, pitched as the easier kind of love, playing second fiddle to a big, sweeping, romantic love affair. Romantic relationships take center stage, while friendships are supporting cast.
Oh, but I treasure my friendships. I have felt butterflies the first time I laid eyes on a friend. I have fought tooth and nail to keep them, to mend broken relationships. And I have mourned so deeply when a friendship comes to an end. I love my husband and my family with every piece of my heart. But it is my friends who fill in the gaps my family just can’t fill.
One of my very best friends was in my class in residency. I was drawn to her infectious positive energy from day one of intern orientation, but by virtue of our situation, we were pitted against one another, competing for success in our field. It was easy to feel threatened by one another. Over wine and dessert during intern year, under the auspice of blowing off steam, we confessed our mutual intimidation, but were also thrilled to discover a mutual admiration.
That brutally honest conversation galvanized our friendship, enabling us to carry one another through her mother’s cancer diagnosis and my father’s unexpected death. We were both selected as chief residents, and she brought her first baby to visit me in the hospital while I was on bed rest during my first pregnancy, conducting chief resident meetings from my hospital bed.
Very few relationships have only one bump in the road, and ours was no exception. A major event triggered mutual disappointment in one another, and threatened the very survival of our friendship. It took months before we were able to repair the damage, but again, brutal honesty was our saving grace. Confessing our hurts and giving space for forgiveness allowed us time to rebuild the trust we had lost. We are now bonded so strongly it is hard to imagine a time when it might have been otherwise.
Another one of the loves of my life started out as a freshman year frenemy. During an ill-fated college ski trip, we bonded over lettuce wraps and cheap pinot grigio and a mutual spirit of annoyance. We have since championed one another through law school and med school, commiserating over mountains of work and celebrating our successes. I’ll never forget receiving the call from her that she had been run over by a literal truck, and I don’t know that I have ever been more proud of another human being than I am of her, fighting tooth and nail for her own recovery while mothering an infant and keeping up with law school. She finished on time, had another baby, and passed the bar on the first try.
During the week of my dad’s stroke, she compiled love letters of encouragement for me from friends near and far, then drove across two states with an infant to sit with me in my dad’s ICU room as I wept my goodbyes. A couple years later, we traded texts and phone calls constantly during her divorce and my deployment. A few years after that, we finally celebrated our success in a big way and took a long weekend trip to Paris, right before the world shut down in 2020. Then we traded texts and phone calls again during rolling lockdowns, commiserating over the plight of the working parent during a pandemic. Our kids and husbands have never met, but she is my person.
Say what you want about Sex and the City, but those four brilliantly flawed women have taught me more about genuine friendship than nearly any other source. They saw one another through triumphs and tragedies, spoke hard truths, and held each other in the highest esteem. Their lives remained intertwined, despite differences in marital status, choices about parenthood, and socioeconomic status (though one could argue Carrie could have made wiser real estate choices had she not invested so much equity in her footwear—to each their own). The way I see it, the resounding message of the series lies not in the idea that men are expendable, but rather in the truth that our friends can champion us and carry us through anything. And that, no matter where our differing paths may lead us, we can walk them together.
We tend to treasure a thing more wholeheartedly when we work hard to bring it into being. I hold my marriage all the more dear not in spite of, but because of, all the work we have put into making it strong. I feel the same way about my friendships. My friends have shown me love in action: standing in the gap when I need help, calling me out when I’m being a jerk, and supporting me in endeavors that help me become my best self. I can only hope they can say the same about me.
Emily’s Five Intentions for 2023
For the record, I am in full support of rejecting the “New Year, New You” mentality that tends to be so pervasive this time of year. We’ve all been struggling to keep our heads above water for the past few years, and a well-deserved pat on the back should be all we hold ourselves to this January. But with a spirit of whittling my life into its best form, doing more of what works and abandoning what doesn’t, here are some things I’m leaning into this year.
Over time, and especially as I have walked through motherhood, I have learned to be fiercely protective of my time alone. Without some time to breath and rejuvenate, I am just not my best. But can I take my for myself without feeling at least a little guilty about it? Uh, no. So I am setting an intention to view my personal time as essential for my health and wellbeing as brushing my teeth or eating regular meals. I am in need of a shift in perspective.
My husband and I want to get back into the habit of having regular date nights. We’ve done this off and on over the course of our 12 year marriage, and have found that when we have a regular monthly or twice monthly night to get away from the kids, together, it does so much good for our relationship.
I was late to jump on the sourdough bandwagon, but I’m finally here. I was gifted some starter last fall and am slowly learning the ins and outs of baking bread. Inexplicably, more than any other skill I’ve learned, baking bread makes me feel like a creative genius. At this point, I am barely scratching the surface of all there is to know about this art, but I am hoping to become even more well-versed by year’s end.
I set a conservative goal to read 30 books in 2022, and I blew it out of the water. This year, I am shooting for 50 books, which feels attainable, But I’ll be thrilled if I exceed my own goals again.
I have talked about I Am before: it’s an app that sends affirmations to my Apple watch at regular intervals throughout the day. Silly as it is, it really helps shift my perspective and promotes a growth mindset for me. My kids have gotten into a bad habit of negative self talk, so I’ve started daily affirmations with them as well. Snoop Dogg, of all sources, has a fantastic Affirmations Song on his kids album (I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence either) that my kids love to hate. Every little bit of intentional positivity helps.
In gratitude,
Emily Fleming
P.S. We did a beautiful series on Friendship Through the Years in 2022. Read about our friendships in our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
