Monday January 11, 2010

I have a need to celebrate tonight. And I am celebrating all the incredible women I am coming to know here in cyberland. Every day I start looking through my blog and move on to looking at all kinds of blogs from all kinds of places.Many of my favorite bloggers are women from all walks of life...women who are talented and beautiful and strong and spiritual. Women who have overcome incredible odds..against alcoholism or incest or the death of a child. Against illness or debilitation or fear. Against violence and depression and heartbreak. And almost every one of them without exception, comes out the other side stronger, more beautiful and more compassionate than anything I have ever witnessed. And they come online and they share their experiences, their strengths and their hopes with anyone who takes the time to read. The honesty and the raw courage exhibited empower me to be a better person. They constantly give me the hope that good prevails and that love is always the answer and that we can do together what we could never do alone.

I got an email from an old high school friend of mine with this picture in it. I fell in love with it, and that got me to thinking about the women in my life.

We hold each other up. We care for each other in a hundred little ways. We laugh together, we cry together. We take care of each other's children. We bring casseroles when we are sick and still have families clamoring for supper. We clean each other's houses and visit in hospitals and sit up through the long nights of missing children and out of control husbands. Once we have connected, we are locked in, and it usually takes a LOT to break that connection. We understand how it feels. We have great empathy for each other. We celebrate birthdays and bring flowers when husbands forget to. We trade clothes, we trade stories and we trade hopes and dreams.

I don't know where I would be without the women in my life. I was young and growing up pretty much without a mother, until she died when I was 27. It was my girlfriends who taught me things I needed to know about life and love and nurtured me along all those years. As I got older, I came to realize the importance and strength of those women, and I wanted to be like them. They are great role models for me, even now.

I have women in my life today who mentor me and cheer me on and keep me laughing.

They make me know that I am important to them too.

And I am so especially blessed by your presence in my life...and I just want you all to know how much you mean to me. All you women bloggers--listen up!

Thank you for enriching my life every day. I love you all.


Namaste.