“We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational and so disciplined they can be free,” Kavita Ramdas.  I love this in the context of moving forward, both as individuals and as a group.  Speaking of letting go yesterday brought to mind this idea of the people who have helped me move forward and break the habit of negative first impressions, and approaching things too timidly/with fear—lacking confidence, really.  First impressions aren’t always accurate—and neither are later impressions.  Sometimes the people we think are for us turn out to be the ones holding the knife and the ones we thought were out to get us are the ones cutting us out of the net.  People surprise us and we need to let them because we all deserve the opportunity to be who we are—and we need to afford them the same opportunity.  Sometimes we have something others need and sometimes they have what we need—and we will never know until we allow them into our bubble and start discovering who they are.  Sometimes in that discovery process, we learn more about who we are as well.

I have friends who think (and thought) they needed to take care of me under the assumption I would have no say in choosing how to move forward. While it was nice to be cared for, they didn’t hear what I said, they didn’t see who I was, they didn’t allow me to express the things I needed to or understand that I had more control of my situation than they thought.  They saw a few moments of weakness that they didn’t really even help with, and they assumed I was weak, that I needed a hero or that I didn’t understand something about life.  Rather than supporting me through those times, they assumed they needed to support me entirely and that they could influence my identity and who I needed to be to them.  While I have no issue helping my friends, I struggle with demands being made on how I am supposed to accept their help.  Or rather, I struggle with saying I need an orange and they give me an apple and I’m supposed to be satisfied or grateful because they gave me fruit.  Or being grateful when I say I just need someone to listen and they tell me their story repeatedly rather than hear mine so it becomes more about us taking care of them rather than mutual reciprocity.

I recently found out what happens when there is real support between friends.  When there is more than a common interest between people and they are actually similar.  There is power there.  There is amazing power in support that comes from shared desire and goals and interest versus a manipulative need for validation under the guise of being helpful.  Friendship is born of both mutual interest and shared goals and there are times in any relationship when someone can’t carry all the weight and someone does a little more work than the other.  That doesn’t mean one person is weaker than the other and if the other person is constantly making our struggles about them, that’s more exhausting than trying to solve the problem on our own because we end up doing the feeling work for that other person rather than working on our own issue.  Friendship that understands the ebb and flow, friendship that comes from relating to people shows reciprocity rather than letting one person always handle their issues on their own while also having to help the other party.  There isn’t a hierarchy where either side is trying to prove they are capable of all things, some sort of superiority thing. That relationship is about being collaborative rather than forcing someone to be something they are not or putting our issues on them.

A strong tribe is built of women who bring out the best in each other.  We heal each other and we work to move forward together.  We need a tribe, we need that support.  I have witnessed what happens when we are too independent and I have witnessed what happens when we are too dependent on others.  We either end up burnt out or disappointed because people aren’t meeting our expectations.  But there is a middle ground: when we find the right group of people we each play our role and we are stronger for it.  Certain relationships are meant to help us through a particular time—I will bring back the saying about a reason, a season, or a lifetime.  I assigned the wrong designations to some people, we all do, and we need to move on, knowing who we are, knowing what we are meant to do and what we need.  It’s ok to not be everything to every person.  We aren’t meant to fit in everyone’s mold and they aren’t meant to fit into ours, either.   But those who are for us will always find us at the right time, no matter how long they are with us.  To those who stick around and build with me, I am beyond grateful to solidify who I am with you.  To those who brought me to the real ones, I am beyond grateful because you chipped away the parts of me that weren’t really me.  To my future tribe, I welcome you, and I am proud to be part of you.  To all, thank you for the lessons—I carry them with me, always.