Female friendships are some of the first relationships we learn to build.
When you’re little, they begin with proximity. Cousins. Sisters. The daughters of your parents’ friends. The girls sitting next to you in class. You don’t choose each other so much as you grow up alongside one another. You learn to love through shared spaces, shared routines, shared years.
I went to school with eight other kids. Eight.
In a place that small, friendship isn’t optional — it’s woven into your daily life. One of my closest friends today is still a girl I met in kindergarten. At this point, that relationship has surpassed friendship and become something closer to family. Our lives are bound together by time, memory, and the quiet knowing that only comes from growing up side by side.
Those early friendships carried me — and many of them still do.
As children, most of our friendships are formed this way. Through proximity. Through routine. Through being placed in the same rooms and learning how to care for one another inside them. But eventually, something begins to shift.
You reach an age where you realize that not everyone is growing in the same direction. And that realization doesn’t always arrive loudly. Sometimes it settles in slowly, through small moments that leave an impression.
I started noticing it in conversations — who was the prettiest in class, who was the smartest, who was “the best.” In subtle comments from adults that were meant as praise but carried an undertone of comparison. Oh, Lily got an A. Of course she did.
It showed up everywhere.
Academics. Leadership. Attention. Social dynamics. Every space where young women were learning how to exist alongside one another seemed to carry an unspoken ranking system.
I hated it.
Because in my mind, friendship was never meant to feel like competition. I already competed with myself enough. I wanted my friends to be the best versions of themselves — and I wanted us all to win. But slowly, I began to understand that not everyone had been taught how to celebrate others without measuring themselves in the process.
So I learned to hold my wins quietly.
I often felt like I had to celebrate myself by myself. Sharing good news sometimes felt uncomfortable, as if doing well might create distance rather than closeness. Not because anyone was unkind — but because comparison has a way of isolating even the most well-intentioned people.
When I was fifteen, I moved to Florida. Across the country, away from the small world that had shaped me. It was a pivotal age to be uprooted — the age when belonging feels especially fragile.
Back home, I had always known the people around me. Even when I moved on to a larger high school, there was familiarity — teammates, classmates, people I had grown up alongside. In Florida, I entered tenth grade at a small Catholic high school where everyone already knew one another. For the first time, I understood what it felt like to step into a world that already existed without me.
I made friends. I built relationships.
But I crave deep connection, and depth takes time. It requires safety and a shared willingness to be present with one another.
I later changed schools again to attend a charter high school where I could earn my AA. It was one of the best decisions I made for my education. I joined clubs, ran organizations, played sports, volunteered. I built a full life. I built an identity rooted in purpose and curiosity.
And still, I carried the friendships I already had — even as my world continued to widen.
College introduced me to incredible women. Women I admired deeply. But it was also the season when I became more aware that not all relationships are built to hold growth in the same way. Some friendships remain steady across time. Others are shaped by season and circumstance.
Then I met Lizzie.
We had a class together — Comparative Politics. We were in the same sorority, though I never quite felt like I belonged there. Our friendship formed quietly and then all at once. Study dates that turned into long conversations. Library sessions that involved more laughter than studying. Honest talks about ambition, uncertainty, and the lives we hoped to build.
For the first time in a long time, friendship felt easy.
There was no tension around success. No quiet comparison. When something good happened in my life, she celebrated fully — and I did the same for her. We wanted the best for each other without hesitation.
That was when I realized what real friendship could feel like.
We could do the most ordinary things together — grocery shopping, sitting around doing nothing — and it still felt full. Still felt right. She showed me what it meant to choose someone, not out of convenience or proximity, but out of genuine care and alignment.
We’ve been friends for nearly eight years now. Through our lowest lows and highest highs, we have remained steady in each other’s lives. We continue to support one another through new seasons, celebrating the women we are becoming even when distance separates us.
The friends I’ve loved throughout my life were never lacking in goodness. Many of them I still carry with me today — friendships rooted in childhood, memory, and shared beginnings. My life hasn’t been a story of replacing friendships, but of carrying them forward while meeting new ones along the way.
It’s not that my friendships changed — it’s that my world expanded. Moving from place to place has shown me that connection doesn’t always require a decade of history to be real. I’ve learned that I can meet kind, good people and feel safe with them sooner than I once thought. That trust doesn’t always have to be earned slowly through time. Sometimes it arrives through shared values, emotional intelligence, and the quiet recognition of genuine care.
The friendships in my life now feel both rooted and expansive. I’m surrounded by emotionally intelligent women who offer genuine care and thoughtful insight — women who steady me, challenge me, and celebrate me without comparison. Some have known me since childhood. Others I’ve met in entirely new seasons of life. What connects them isn’t time alone, but the mutual respect and warmth we extend to one another.
I’m learning that deep friendship can grow in many ways — through years of shared history, or through an immediate sense of trust and alignment. Both are real. Both are meaningful. Both carry us.
And as I continue becoming, I find myself surrounded by women who do just that — who carry me through each new season, just as I carry them.
With heart,
