I love my sisters. We’ve traveled a life together of deepest intimacy. We’ve celebrated each other’s passages through Holy Communion, first periods, Confirmation, school graduations, marriage, the purchase and sale of homes, the birth of children. We’ve supported each other during the death of our father, divorce, financial hardship, menopause, and commitment to our mother living in a place where she is treated with dignity. My sisters (and brothers) are there for me, and I for them. We are a tight circle of love.

But I do love my girlfriends! Sisters from another mother give you perspective on your “story,” that narrative you use to describe yourself and your life. Your blood sisters are too close in to see some things straight up, especially if they share personality traits. If you come from a family of accommodators (visualize my entire family raising their hands), then you must count on your BFF to point out that you are 1) undervaluing yourself 2) in a relationship with someone who is not good for you 3) a talented and accomplished woman who deserves the best.

They’re unafraid, unlike my family, who want always to be kind, to call me out when I’m mired in self-pity, inclined to hole-up when I should be socializing, too rigid about certain things, like consuming only organic food or fretting that highlighting my hair means I’m caving in to the patriarchy. Whereas my family greeted my midlife name change with pushback, my girlfriends understood that I needed a reset. The second half of my life deserved christening with a new name, and they got that.

When I went through separation and divorce, my local BFFs sprang to action to keep me sane and healthy in more ways than I can recount. And when I was so blessed to marry the love of my life in 2016, one performed the ceremony, while another helped me pick out my wedding dress, not an easy task for a middle-aged divorcee on a tight budget.

I’ve made pacts with my girlfriends (and sisters) about the future. I don’t want to live alone. If I’m widowed, I want to shack up with girlfriends ala the Golden Girls. Yes, we’ll get on each other’s nerves, the way we sometimes do now about the little differences between us, but we’ll have company, someone to watch tv with, say goodnight to, drink coffee with in the morning, to comfort when sorrows pass over. We’ll gossip, commiserate about the horrors of aging, and spend quiet time writing and working on art projects.

One of the biggest mistakes I made in life, and I made it repeatedly, was to neglect my girlfriends when I was in a romantic relationship. Just when I could have really benefited from their counsel, when I was in a pheromone fog and incapable of clear-headed decisions, I shifted away and trusted my own immature lizard brain. I also convinced myself that I related more to men, was more comfortable in what I perceived as their non-judging friendships. And, to make my isolation more complete, after a few of my closest girlfriends asked for more than friendship, I retreated, unsure how to handle that or my feelings for them.

But men betrayed me. What felt like non-judging at the time, even an embrace of my tomboy nature, turned into an attack on what was perceived as my “male energy,” something that provoked emotional and physical abuse. And so I got myself away from the bad men, though it took many years and a great toll on my psyche.

In dark moments, the ones that come upon waking at 3am, or after watching a tv show that hammers home the potential meaninglessness of my 55 years, I see my life as giving credence to the expression “youth is wasted on the young.” Ah, how I have steeped in the bitter tea of regret over the possibilities that drifted out of sight, the children I never had, the what ifs and what could have beens. But that is not a train of thought I want to spend much time riding, and I’m very aware that the road I took brought me treasures, and led to the friendships, and marriage, I’m so fortunate to have now.

With wisdom gained from a half-century of life, I make relationships with girlfriends a priority. I host a women-only salon and book club, and am part of a women-only writers’ group. I schedule time for friend dates, emails, and facebook posts. I’m strengthened by these women, by their fierce resolve, their graceful thinking, their enviable talents, their open hearts. The more I watch them in action, their delightful facial expressions, their inspiring righteousness, their steadfast persistence in a world that has often treated them as less because of their sex, the more I value all that they offer to me and everyone else who encounters them. Do I treasure my girlfriends? Hell yes, more and more each day.