As I approach the halfway point of my 21st year, I am becoming more and more aware of the fact that true friendships are hard to come by. True connection is a special thing. When someone accepts you for who you really are, listens to your truth, or more importantly, helps you find your truth, it doesn’t matter what year they entered the world.
The connections I’ve witnessed and been part of between people in their 20s are much more selfish than the ones I’ve encountered between older and younger women. There is a sense of using another for personal benefit that makes sense only at this age.
It takes so much effort to keep oneself healthy, functioning and attentive at this age that thinking of or caring about someone else’s best interest seems out of the question. Of course there are the exceptions (I can think of a few), but they are super humans, abnormal and therefore not a part of this “study.”
I arrived clueless and naive to the big city in 2013 , at the age of 18. My mom realized through my constant phone calls that I was in desperate need of a nurturing presence, and so she connected me with her friend, Nancy, 64, who in turn asked me over for a drink in her Park Avenue apartment.
After taking the 6 train the wrong way for three stops, realizing my mistake, switching to the opposite track and therefore arriving 30 minutes late, I arrived uptown and was greeted by her doorman, Renaldo who escorted me into the mirrored elevator.
I walked into her home, and it truly was a home, so drastically different from my freshman dorm with its high ceilings and bookshelves lined the walls. She looked me in the eyes and handed me a glass of chilled white wine.
“So tell me your truth,” she said before any of those boring niceties got in the way.
And we were off to the races. All the bottled up conversation came rushing out. I hadn’t realized how much I was craving authentic connection. The “hi-how-are-you’s” and “I’m-from-California-how-about-you’s” were draining the life out of me and Nancy’s simple question was like a bolt of electricity. Straight to the core, no bullshit.
I rode the subway home that night, slightly drunk on both the wine and the conversation, and thought there might be something truly special about having a friendship with an older woman. They offer confidants that have been through most of what I am currently going through. They offer witnesses to my life who have perspective I cannot posses.
While our first conversation was largely one-sided, my loneliness and home-sickness taking precedent over her own dramas, before the semester was over, we delved into those topics headfirst. Happily divorced for over twenty years, but seeking companionship for the next chapter of her life, we talked about her various dates over a bottle of red at a downtown bistro.
Struggling to part with her home of 16 years, but feeling trapped by history within its four walls, we discussed the possibilities beyond Park Avenue while slurping ramen on Avenue A.
I felt as if I have broken the code to being a young woman: find someone who has literally been through the exact same thing and leach off their wisdom.
A friend, Sydney, had a similar awakening when she was a freshman at Pitzer College in Southern California and she was hired by a 60 year old woman.
This woman needed help sorting through her tchotchkes, and also, as became evident, needed someone to talk to. Within minutes of their introduction, they were digging deeper than surface conversation. She told Sydney about life as an anthropologist, a mother, a wife and a divorced breast cancer surviving feminist entering the 21st Century of dating.
“There’s a certain rawness that comes along with the company of women in their 50s, 60s and above that lacks in my relationships with woman my age,” Sydney said.
It’s difficult get that kind of depth in someone just entering their 20s. They have their own set of gifts, mostly of experiencing life in the same moment in time, but when I’m trying to step back and do the work, I turn to Nancy.
Nancy and I recently met up in the Central Park, she smiled and stood back to look at me.
I self consciously tousled my hair and rubbed my nose, assuming she saw the faults I did, but instead, she said the kindest words I could have thought:
“Your truth, it’s finally showing.”