If I’d Only Known:
I've experienced the freedom of vulnerably expressing my deepest feelings. I will never squander this price-less gift.
May 5, 2018 (Journal Entry)
My dear friend Georgiana Millerman Ewing is dying. A glioblastoma multiform tumor took root in the left frontal lobe of her brain and silently did its damage without notice until it was too late. Surgically (mostly) removed she has been temporarily restored to all of us who love her, but statistics say that this reprieve won’t last long.
Georgiana has, for years, known everything about me. Every. Single. Thing. I have trusted her with my deepest confidences since we became friends the year I turned twenty-two. We bonded over our long braids and button-up Levi’s in a small Texas town where we both felt somehow different. We only had two years before she married and moved out of state, leaving me, but not our friendship, behind.
There are very few photographs of G. and I, despite our long friendship. When I puzzle over why, I realize that the time we’ve spent together has been spent largely alone: Mornings spent drinking coffee in the mountain cabin where we meet for a week each July and review every detail of the entire past year. Days spent walking side by side, creating visions for our future. Evenings reserved for sharing a beer on the porch, watching our children play, and imagining them grown, leaving us lonelier but uninterrupted by their needs. We rarely stand next to one another smiling into a camera lens because, truth be told, that would require the presence of someone else, and our friendship has held little room for anyone but us. Even our husbands have been mostly absent over the years; Though we jointly appreciate them for the time they graciously encourage us to spend alone together.
The only photo I could find of Georgiana and I was taken after surgery and during her course of chemotherapy. Her long braid and beautiful silver hair were gone but she was so much the same.
I’ve always thought that we would have all the time in the world. I’ve always believed we would grow old together. I have been sure that we would hold each other’s memories deep into old-age. I’ve been certain we would have years to continue to speak the language unique to our friendship, one we have been developing for thirty-eight years. I have been wrong.
Thank God our relationship has not suffered from many regrets. We’ve generally cleaned up and laughed over the messes we’ve made with each-other. But, if I’m honest, there is one thing I think I want to change: Today I’m asking myself if I have used the time I’ve had with G. to give voice to my deepest fears, and greatest vulnerabilities. She’s known them of course, because she has known me, but that is different somehow than granting myself the freedom to express them. She has patiently listened to me tell so many stories. She easily inferred my fear as one of my children spiraled deep into a disease he couldn’t control and knew the relief I felt when that disease abated. She saw the depth of my longing for a child who left our family for a time, and the joy I felt when he returned. She understood my ache for another who had her dreams deferred and saw my long exhale when everything changed. She knows my feelings because I have shared the facts, the narrative, and my experiences. She has been wise enough to intuit my feelings. But, have I actually granted myself permission to voice my deepest vulnerabilities? Have I given myself freedom to express my messiest feelings? What relief that would offer! How much time do I have left?
I am realizing that these most vulnerable conversations are ones I have reserved for an inner dialog with my mother since her death. Mom lives on in my heart, and her words echo in my head. She is a good sounding board now that she’s gone and I know her well enough to predict how she would respond to my feelings. I suspect that I will have these transparent conversations with G. once she too has passed, but today I’m wondering: “Do I need to wait?”
Girlfriends, trusted ones, are scarce and price-less. They are the one place a woman can share her secrets, her greatest fears, her deepest longings, and be completely understood by another woman who shares them also. Truly my feelings are rarely unique to me and what a luxury to have such safety. Why have I not taken advantage of this gift? Why, while there is still time, would I wait when I could quit holding myself so tightly and give myself freedom today. What relief to be fully me, fully seen. What in the world do I have to lose, when I have such freedom to gain? Why would I wait to allow this part of myself to be seen only by those who are gone? I don’t think I want to save honestly vulnerable conversations anymore for the day they take place only in my heart; It is safe to have them “out-loud” now. It always was, I just haven’t known it until today.
(Post Script:)
January 23, 2021
Georgiana died one year ago this morning, just short of the second anniversary of her diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. She has left an empty space that no-one else will fill. Over the course of this year I have reached for the phone too many times to celebrate or cry. Instead I text her husband Jack, and ask him to share the feeling with me. I’m grateful that I had time realize the gift of our friendship as the safest of spaces to show up vulnerably during the last year and a half of her life. It didn’t change a thing about our friendship, she had known me all along, but oh how it changed me! I won’t take this gift for granted in the years, and in the relationships, I have left. If I had only known…
