On Sisterhood, Friendship Loss, And The Women We Become — Part II

seasons of interludes and rediscovery.

On Sisterhood, Friendship Loss, And The Women We Become is a series exploring the grief of losing friendships and the power that sisterhood and community has in shaping us as women.

Insecure

Here’s to the women we’ve lost and found again. To the sisterhoods that are withstanding, even through moments of intermission. Here’s to the women that our journeys offer us the privilege of reinhabiting space with, love with, life with.

I am ever grateful to Kendall for offering such a profound piece and sharing this writing space with me. I was so moved when I initially read her essay, and am even more in awe revisiting her words. What a sweet reflection and invitation to dwell on the women we have had the pleasure of finding again — more knowing of themselves, more guided by love.

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The Women We Find Again

Kendall McElway

When a friend and fellow writer approached me with a collaboration idea, the answer was immediately yes. “You should write about friendship maintenance and the importance of sisterhood," her text read. "Maybe explore how it's shifted as you've gotten older. If you've experienced any loss of friendship, feel free to weave that in as well." 

I was twelve when the beautician I now affectionately call auntie stressed, "I don’t care how great of a man you marry, how much you love your kids, or how incredible your career is—you will always need your girlfriends. Don’t forget that." Somehow, I knew those words were meant for me. They warmed my bones as if I’d spoken them myself and although years away from internalizing the concept of 'purpose,' I knew they were connected to the instruction God assigned when bringing me Earthside. And since that day, even when resenting the responsibility of nurturing relationships, those words have remained true. 

Though deeply resonating with the topic of friendship among women, I was humbled by what a challenge it was keeping pen to paper on this. I found myself hesitating, stumbling over the idea of "losing friendships." Not because I haven’t lost any—I have. I have always been an overgiver – the friend willing to dedicate myself to building and sustaining relationships. However, I have not always been the friend who was honest about my feelings, expectations, or intentions when doing so. And, just as that’s resulted in releasing women from my life, there are women who’ve made the same decision about me. But when I think of loss, those are not the connections that come to mind. 

What hangs onto my spirit are the women I still have the privilege of loving—the ones I’ve lost and found again. Some of them slipping into the background, reduced to annual birthday texts and the occasional Facebook comment echoing our feelings of unconditional support. Others were lost as newer versions of themselves emerged, growing into someone I hadn’t yet met.

I’m beginning to believe the secret to navigating relationships in your twenties is making peace with the bittersweet cycle of losing and rediscovering one another. Lovingly holding space during the seasons they're no longer the person you knew yet not quite the person they’re focused on becoming. Actually, could that be the secret to relationships period? It’s like the transition between summer and fall. The air is crisp. The leaves begin to change. The effort is clear. Then a hot day arrives mid-October and reminds everyone that summer is in fact not that far behind us. 

Because what we don’t realize is, those friendships— the ones that can say, “Do you remember when?” and grant us VIP passes to the saga titled “Evolving”— provide to us equal measure of joy and pain. They come with the difficulty of unpacking who we are to ourselves and within relationships. There’s the frustration of, without malice, pulling people back into familiar roles while inadvertently triggering them. Then there’s the sneaky tension that follows. We wake up one day and notice that while the love remains, the connection has shifted distinctly. So, what do we do with that? Can we trust that even if we lose people, we might find them again? 

To my pleasure, I have found those women again. Much softer. I’ve found them sillier and lighter, and clearer about what they want in life. They’ve reemerged more capable of contributing to intentional friendships. I’ve found them as mothers. As wives. As women who are beginning to understand their desires more deeply. They are women no longer running from vulnerability. More willing to declare, “I need help,” and less afraid to say, “that hurt my feelings.” How sweet that has been, even in its discomfort. 

I’m grateful not to dwell on the friendships that have faded. Pleased that when asked to reflect, my mind zoomed in on the women who remain, and the many iterations of them I’ve cherished and let go of over time. I also think of the versions of me I hope they’ve lost. Because with honor to the younger self who brought me this far, I am no longer her. Respectfully, I left her where she needed to be. 

And who knows, maybe some of the women who are no longer characters in my story are simply lost for now, not forever. Maybe when I revisit this piece for the book I’ll write in ten years, there will be more friendships woven into the story. I will sit close, breathe in all that they’ve become, and say: “Wow. I’m so happy I get to know you again.”

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Interludes

Mariah Maddox

There are women I have known in many languages. Women who have witnessed me unfold into various translations of myself over time. Though faced with moments of interlude, the verses that’ve followed have done so with more surety — each pause, only deepening the melody we bend to.

To be soft and patient with each other as we travel through countless forms of ourselves is a fundamental component of sisterhood that determines its strength, grit, and durability. We grasp that the journey is never truly about arrival, but rather surrendering to our becoming — and witnessing that of each other — over and over again.

I have learned that the lessons we acquire in the vacancies of each other only teach us to become more tender for when we return — and for when our hearts, our lives, become residencies for another again after times of intermission. These are the sisterhoods in which I’ve found fresh refuge in — after navigating conflict, naming the ache (and holding space for it), having uncomfortable conversations, facing hard truths, leaning into the wound. A profound emergence of new degrees of intimacy has always existed on the other side of these things.

And they have also made space for the most warming reintroductions — the ones in which we bring ourselves more informed, accountable, responsible, and receptive. The ones in which we have the ability to offer more of ourselves — healed, if so be it, or still in pieces and merely finding our way with more grace, dignity, patience, and understanding. The ones where we realize that in our willingness to carry ourselves (our truth, our joy, our pain and trauma), we also learn how to carry each other.

In absences, there is a sound raised that invites us to listen. A rhythm formed that we can learn to follow. The seasons in these cases, as I recognize now, have not been endings. They have rather been echoes of our former selves that had fallen out of rhythm, retuned, and then carried us forward and placed us into the arms of the women we exist as today. An invitation to consider that not all that’s lost is truly lost, but perhaps simply shifting for a time of rediscovery.

The love, resilience, and force of sisterhood can be found in the tender pauses — the moments in between one version of ourselves and the next. It can be found in our return, when we flow back like the tides rolling in, taking up a new sound.

The love, resilience, and force of sisterhood can be found where an interval has taken place — but where love has chosen to follow.

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More From This Series:

Part I: Can We Talk About Friendship Breakups?

On Sisterhood, Friendship Loss, And The Women We Become — Part I