> CD #83: Female friendship
I was planning on writing about something entirely different today, but then I read Mira Jacob’s lovely essay about female friendship and thought about my friend Julie and how much of a miracle it is that we’ve been friends pretty much since the day she was born. That’s an exaggeration, of course. Our moms were friends and pregnant at roughly the same time, but it doesn’t mean we were all that aware of each other at first. And it wasn’t until Grade 5, when we bonded over a teeny-bopper magazine with eighties icon Alyssa Milano on the cover, that we began our friendship in earnest.
My relationship with Julie isn’t remarkable only because of its longevity—we have been there for each other through almost everything you could name—but also because she is one of the few people I can talk with unabashedly about fashion and style (besides you all, lol).
Discussing personal style can put you in a vulnerable place because you have to a) admit you care about such so-called frivolous things, b) reveal something about how you hope others will perceive you, and c) confess at least some of your physical and/or social insecurities. It requires a certain unguardedness. You need to feel safe.
Julie and I are total opposites in many ways, including fashion—our tastes have diverged quite a bit since our Tiger Beat bonding—but we maintain a genuine interest in helping each other look and feel our best. We take each other seriously, even when it’s just me trying to convince her that my third word really is “playful” while she believes it’s “artsy,” and I’m wearing my favourite toque at the kitchen table to plead my case.
Oh hey, I just realized this toque has the same colours as Alyssa Milano’s t-shirt. Wow, some things really don’t change, I guess. But anyway, here’s to long-lasting friendships that grow with you from babyhood to girlhood to womanhood and whatever else lies ahead.
I’ll let Mira Jacobs have the final words:
A best friend is a different kind of home entirely, one that reveals itself to be more miraculous with the passing of time. Even the words best and friend feel like they should have outgrown each other—too youthful, too indulgent, too clinging to something that should have expired with girlhood. But they are the only ones I know that can capture the bewildering magic of being loved as your fullest self just because. Because your girl pulls up. Because she listens. Because she sees your most complicated self and does not flinch. Because she understands you before you are ready or willing to understand yourself and has your back when you forget how to have your own. Because against all odds, she remains. There’s no contract you sign with your best friend that you’ll stay together forever, until death do you part; there’s just this daily fact of loving each other and showing up.
:) Teresa
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