My unexpected refuge

This is the view from what might be my truest home, one to which I’ve been returning — lovingly welcomed in good times and bad, whether I was lonely-and-single, freshly-divorced or happily-remarried — for more than 20 years.

It’s in Toronto, the home of a friend I met when I was just starting out in journalism, a woman 11 years my senior, a witty, fun, worldly publicist.

Through our work, and with her, I had some of my best adventures, both personal and professional, like one of my first-ever visits to New York where I (yes) performed eight shows of The Sleeping Beauty with the National Ballet of Canada (as an extra.) She took me to see “Sweeney Todd” on Broadway and loaned me money when mine was stolen.

As I spent my 20s in Toronto, forever single but professionally doing well, she saw me through some mighty tempestuous affairs, one with a local legend, an eccentric/talented guy we still talk about and recall with some fondness. My own parents never met or even heard of some of  my ex-es, even the Big Deals, but she remembers them all.

Like me, she’s had plenty of dishy beaux and never had kids. Living alone suits her.

What she so generously offers, to me and many others, is a place of refuge.

I once stayed with her for three weeks as I recovered from being victimized by a con artist in New York in 1998, an experience that left me so terrified and traumatized I seriously considered — for the first time since leaving Canada in 1988 — returning to Toronto for good. I needed time and a safe place to heal far, far away from the fear and, even worse, my local police and DA who dismissed his six felonies, and my experience, with a laugh.

In all my subsequent visits over the years, M and I rarely hang out or have long heart-to-hearts. She’s always super-busy, but gives me a key and we bump into one another in the kitchen for a few minutes or chat as she’s getting ready to go out to another meeting or event. But the full-to-bursting fridge is mine to raid, the teetering stacks of newspapers and magazines everywhere there for the pillaging.

Most important of all, though, her home is a place I feel safe and loved. Here, she helped me throw a birthday party for my 50th, inviting 10 of my oldest friends. Here, she helped me throw a birthday party for my husband’s 50th as well, only a few months later.

She is, it has taken me a long time to fully understand, true family.

I left my father’s house for good when I was 19. He sold it weeks later and went to Europe to live on a boat for a few years. My mother was traveling the world alone. My home, then, was a tiny studio apartment. I had no aunts or uncles or cousins nearby, no siblings and no family support.

My parents never told me it was OK to come home again, not after my divorce, not after losing a few jobs and trying to weather the recession. My troubled mother lived a six-hour flight away and my father had a new family with little tolerance for me hanging around.

M’s house — I finally, gratefully realized after all these years as I sat alone one morning this week with a cup of tea in the darkened kitchen — really is home, if home is the place you are always greeted with love and kindness.

I finally told her that this week, even though both of us are uncomfortable expressing so much emotion. (We WASPs just don’t do feelings!) 

Do you have an unexpected refuge?

Or have you offered one?

When Your BFF Goes MIA

Image by mikebaird via Flickr

Women know that losing a best friend can feel like the worst break-up ever, even more devastating than the loss of a spouse or boyfriend. We may think, hope, even assume that our best female friends are there for life. But they’re not.

I “lost” G a few years ago and I still mourn the loss of someone who once marked every event in my life with a hand-written card, whose apartment I helped re-decorate, with whom I shared adventures in Jamaica and Venezuela. I looked forward to many decades of good times-to-come, maybe even cackling over G & Ts in the nursing home. We’re both boarding-school veterans, world travelers, loudly laughing blonds who were frequently mistaken for sisters. We’re also sufficiently competitive we’d reply, joking: “Yeah, but I’m the smarter/prettier one!” She has a younger sister but I have none, so I especially treasured this aspect of our relationship.

Instead, she dumped me a few years back, and has since refused to answer any attempt to find out what I’ve done so wrong. While I have some lovely female friends, and have since made some new ones, I’ve not yet found another BF, so I was intrigued by this new book, Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, written by a colleague, Irene S. Levine PhD, who is also a therapist. She’s also The Friendship Doctor on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-s-levine.

What made you want to write the book?

I was always very curious how my own friendships compared to those of other women.  I realized that many close and wonderful friendships, that I thought would last forever, had drifted apart over time. I was never really clear about why this happened to me—or if it happened all the time. As a psychologist, journalist, and woman, I jumped on the opportunity to learn more about these complicated relationships.

Why now? What new or different is there to say?

After I started doing research on the topic, I realized that there are still many taboos about female friendship that make young girls and women reluctant to talk about their friendship problems. For example, women are often judged by their ability to make and keep friends. People look askance when they see a woman sitting alone in a restaurant or a theater.

A spate of recent books, movies, and TV shows has romanticized the myth of “best friends forever.” While the acronym BFF is overused on greeting cards and t-shirts, in real life, friendships are far more nuanced and those that last forever are the exception rather than the rule. Yet women are made to feel guilty and ashamed if they are dumped or end a relationship because it no longer is satisfying.

Do you think women see friendships differently now than, say 10 or 20 or even 50 years ago?

Of course, all relationships are affected by their social context but the desire to be a best friend, the chosen one, and have close friendships hasn’t really changed. Every woman wants to have at least one best friend and be a best friend!

There have been changes, however. Fifty years ago, women (as well as men) were less mobile so their friendships tended to be closer at home. Also, women were less involved in the workplace so the majority of their close friendships were with schoolmates and neighbors—as opposed to colleagues. The growth of the Internet has enabled asynchronous communication among women 24/7 across the miles.

If you’re married and your husband/partner is your “best friend” what role does a female BF play?

By virtue of their common experiences, women can share things with each other that they can never share with a man. What husband wants to hear his wife ruminate about her frustration in finding a great bathing suit or hear about her bodily secretions, or can truly understand the acrimony between a mother and her adolescent daughter? Discussing marital problems with a girlfriend can help a women put these things in perspective and solve problems, and make her a better wife/partner/mother. Finally, it is unrealistic to think that any one person, male or female, can meet all of a woman’s needs for intimacy and affiliation.

When you lost your BF, which you refer to in the book, how did you feel and what, if anything helped you make sense of it?

Especially when it’s one-sided, losing a BF can be as painful as losing a husband or partner. When I lost mine, I was young and had no frame of reference. I don’t think the adults around me truly understood the loss and tended to minimize it. I felt sad and misunderstood until I found a replacement!

In an age of text, IM, constant virtual contact, how, if at all, has this BF relationship changed?