Girlfriends

I underestimated the value and the strength of female friendship for a long time.  I went to an all girls’ school from the ages of eleven to eighteen so there was no shortage of female friendship and I may have taken that for granted.  I actually loved going to a Girls’ School because it removed all pretension of having to be cool, calm and collected around boys.  We were able to be silly and girly and we had the freedom, which I believe was the intention of our parents, to focus on our studies without the distraction of boys.  It did however serve to fuel a curiosity about the opposite gender that had to be satisfied largely on the bus ride home.  Some rather curious girls, who shall remain nameless, even propagated a stunt that was supposed to involve three members of the Girls’ School infiltrating the Boys’ School which was separated from us by a big wooden door.  As to how this was going to satisfy the mystery that are boys was not an integral part of that plan but as news of the plot spread there was increasing interest in its outcome.  In my memory that door is twenty feet high, about two feet thick and creaked loudly on the rare occasions it was slowly opened.  It was also right by the teachers’ lounge so no-one in their right mind would have chanced walking through it without clear and specific instructions from someone with authority. 

Therefore, it seemed perfectly logical at the wise age of about fourteen to think that a grand heist could be pulled off by crawling through one of the windows that was on a level with the driveway that passed the Boys’ School on the way to the Girls’ School.  Entry was discussed and planned with great detail but it appears that there was no escape plan; luckily that fell into place ultimately.  The first one in was the only one in because at the very moment of infiltration a teacher from the Girls’ School appeared nonchalantly around the corner.  Of course theories have since been exchanged about this perfect timing and the apparent unperturbed manner with which this teacher headed towards the small crowd by the window.  So pull her out or shove her in was the only choice and they shoved her in and the window slammed shut.  Feeling quite triumphant for a moment that one lone girl in a classroom of boys soon found out that she stood out like the proverbial sore thumb and consequently the next teacher that passed which was shortly thereafter, also with alarmingly good timing, escorted her back to the Girls’ School.  She did at least get to go through the door or the Iron Curtain as we called it, which gave her some credibility but then she had to explain what on earth she thought she was doing.  

Overall the Deputy Headmistress took it well and I thought she may have actually smirked when I tried to make it sound like I had innocently tripped and haphazardly fallen through a window but she was rarely given to such facial expressions so perhaps I imagined it.  I must have been convincing when I said that no-one was involved in my untimely and unfortunate dive so sentence was passed and I was given the first “detention” ever in the history of the school.  In fairness it lasted about twenty minutes on the last day of school because none of the teachers were interested in staying a moment longer than the end of the school year required.  I was also the local hero for about an hour so at least longer than my detention lasted.  This innocent fun and other episodes I can come back to at a later date did not alert me to the camaraderie of female friendship.  I merely took it for granted that there would always be women who shoved you through windows and for whom you covered when necessary.  I did not truly value what women bring to another woman’s life until I was far away from my family, living in Okinawa, Japan and needing someone to be my sounding board so that I would not worry my parents.  Only then did I realize just how much women need women.  We women need each other to patiently listen to all the details of our woes, we need each other as a conscience sometimes, and we especially need each other to tell us that he’s not got enough for us; our girlfriends are the few we will actually heed in this arena. 

As women we bring warmth and understanding and lack of judgment to each others’ lives.  We seem to understand, even when we cannot explain it, why something made our friend irrationally insane and we share those hurt feelings and want to protect each other.  We want the best for our girlfriends and mine seem to put my best interests ahead of their own in a remarkably selfless way that demands no thanks or explanation.  Women need each other to tell us that we are not crazy or rotten to the core for feeling the way we do sometimes and this kind of understanding makes us want to be better people.  We can live without fixing it but we cannot live without talking about it.  If the women in my life did not know how much I value you and love you, I hope that now you do…thank you!