To all the girls I've loved before....

To all the women I love and have loved. To all of the women who have loved and still love me... I wasn't leading you on. I never meant to hurt you. I wasn't being fake in the moment, or tolerating your presence. I truly love you, and the heart connection you felt is real.
It's not you, it's me, and I can explain. 

I love people. I love women. I love hearing their stories, and standing in wonder at the trauma and hurt women suffer through and yet pull themselves up to march on.. maintaining a strong softness that often belies the intimate stories of disappointment they work at healing. I find it easy to connect with people. I often find myself listening to women pour out their hearts in the grocery store line, waiting outside kids' classrooms before conferences, and sitting on the beach during family vacations. I love to talk and to listen. I love sharing ideas and experiences. I have had multiple connections with women that lasted only for a weekend retreat, or three month bible study. Women with whom I feel deep chemistry with; a sisterhood and joint heart understanding. Women who, given different circumstances, would imprint themselves upon my daily life and bring new ideas and adventure. I have experienced the feeling of finding a soul sister only to know the timing was off, or the gift was meant for that moment only.

Collages are small representation of women I love!!

I've been more than blessed with women who have loved me well. I've had good friends since as far back as I can remember and have been mostly protected from the wounding that comes from actions of a girl I considered a friend. I can recall the feelings of awe I had sitting on the front row of church holding my mom's slender, manicured fingers in my own childish hands. I watched my grandma snap peas and laugh over the pitcher of her too-sweet southern tea. I can still hear her raspy soprano melt into my grandpa's bass as they sang Bringing in the Sheaves inside the musty, brick church. I've stood in the mirrored paneled living room of my aunt's house and watched her and her sisters argue with great passion. I've giggled until my stomach hurt in the dark bedrooms of friends when I spent the night. I've crouched at the top of the stairs straining to make out the hushed, somber voices after a woman in our community had miscarried the baby she had longed for for so many years. I've cried on early morning walks when my sister friend told me she knew something was wrong with my son. Women have impacted every facet of my life and I have breathed it in with full, deep draws.

But as well as I have been loved, as intensely as I have been protected and cared for, I have struggled to be a good friend in return.

In my adult life, I have lived in a place of chaos and need. When I became a mother, I was thrust into a world of violence and fear and struggle I hadn't known existed. I went to doctor after doctor trying in vain to get my son help for his raging tantrums and violent behavior. I lived on a military base and was surrounded with women who loved me. I had a friend who lived down the street who would run to my house and take my baby for hours while I turned my attention to my screaming toddler. She would keep my second born safe along with her own growing family while I struggled to survive the terrifying life I had found myself in. For the years we were neighbors, she served my family in ways I've never been able to repay.
Years later when my marriage imploded, I was left with the immediate need for housing, as we had to leave the military base we had called home. I had no job, precious little savings, and no renting history to help me secure housing for my family. I was given the chance to rent a tiny bungalow owned by a woman and her husband I was connected to in my church. When the time came to move on from the cozy dwelling, I was offered the basement of another woman and her family. She only asked me to watch her lively toddler as she pursued her career. We settled in and began to live the reality of being a severed family on that beautiful property. When they moved on a year later, I was permitted to rent the entire house and I began to feel some semblance of normalcy. In the years since I was thrust into single motherhood, I have hustled in every way possible to provide for four kids. I have cleaned houses, mowed yards, babysat, used my photography skills, bartered, sold things I never dreamed I'd have to sell, written articles, applied for more than 60 jobs, worked multiple part time jobs at a time, and walked into the social services office to ask for help. I've been on welfare, cashed out CDs my grandmother had given me as a child and humbly been helped by my parents and various friends. I've spent nights lying awake in bed wondering how I was going to pay my rent, afford the kids medications, and watched several medical bills go into collections. I've prayed and cried, and experienced the miraculous when a check or package appeared unexpectedly just when I thought we would never make it.

I'm proud of how far I've come. I was given a wonderful job by a woman who has lived her own pain. She looked into my eyes and saw me as more than a liability. She saw who I could be, and took a risk in hiring me to assist her. Because of her belief in me, I've been able to work myself off of welfare, pay off the bills that were held captive by bill collectors, and now sleep soundly knowing I am able to take care of my family.

But while things are so much better than they've been, I still hustle. I work full time and part time - 7 days a week. I have four kids who all need specialists and three of them have some level of special education. My time is spent juggling work, and kids and doctor appointments, teacher conferences, my house and trying to hold it all together. There is no down time, rarely time for fun or evenings out or phone calls, and always a fire needing my attention. What that means is my friends still don't get my friendship in the way they deserve. Calls go unanswered, texts flash across my phone waiting for my response, and plans get cancelled. I know I've hurt women. I know I've let down my friends. I know there are women who think I lead them on and think only of myself. I know there are women who mistook my silence for ambivalence. I have seen hurt in the eyes of women who think that my scarcity in their lives is a reflection of my feelings towards them. To those women I want to say- it's not you. It's me.
I don't often share the struggle of my everyday life- not because I'm ashamed of it but because it's not necessary. I don't want pity, I don't like to linger in the hard places, and I would rather spend the precious little time I have with friends talking about other things. But I need you to hear me- if you have felt my love- please don't doubt it. Please don't take my silence personally. I used to talk to my mom almost daily, and now it's a good week if we manage one phone call. I am trying hard to figure out how to do it all, but the truth is, I can't. And what often falls is my active engagement with my relationships. I have days when my energy level soars, and the stars seem to align and I am able to reach out to let you know I think about you always, but there are also times where the chaos in my home reaches insane levels, and the only thing I manage to do is keep everyone safe. I desperately love and need the women in my life- and am so grateful for your presence, and I know that I haven't been the friend to you that you deserve. If I had it to give, I would in a heartbeat. I don't have answers and I don't know how to make it better in this moment, but I want you to know that I am not unaware. And while you may feel it, I don't take you for granted.