For most of my adult life, I got along better with guys than with other women. I don’t seek out friendships with guys and I have all the male perspectives and support I could ask for in the amazing men who are in my life - particularly my husband. But I have always found a better working environment with men as bosses than women. Perhaps because women have been fighting so hard to equal the “playing ground” and to see a woman who previously accepted the “traditional” roles and my passive past, I may have been part of the problem. Perhaps it was just a personality clash.

I had a couple of girlfriends throughout high school, but they never really made the effort to continue the friendships into adulthood. I did find a really good friend right after high school, and we remained close for nearly 13 years until my divorce from my son’s father. Everyone in the church abandoned me when I left, which should not have surprised me considering he was the youth director at the time. My son’s dad was a good father, but at the time, not tuned in to what it took to be a good husband. He has grown and raised our son extraordinarily well and has even played a significant role in helping my book be the success it is today.

While taking care of my mom in her final years, I met a woman who was taking care of her mom next door. After many years without a best friend, our interactions developed quickly into a friendship that we both sorely needed. The supportive laughter and tears in the years that passed became a light in each other’s lives that would prove to weather the rough waters of life. After being each other’s reprieve while caring for our mothers, we found ourselves requiring a reprieve from the friendship for a time but finding our way back to even greater respect for the relationship and have built it back stronger.

Another woman came into my life several years later who would fill a different, but equally important role in my life. Teaching me not to take myself so seriously and reminding me to speak my mind. The woman who beats to her own drum with a heart the size of Texas also has a very small circle of friends because of her highly sensitive empathy (and probably a lack of tolerance for ignorance). About the same time, there came a need for a reprieve from this friendship as well, but we have since resumed the relationship and are better for it and bonded closer.

In hindsight, those breaks were necessary. The time allowed me to meditate, heal, grow, reevaluate, regroup, and recenter myself. I had sorely missed their friendships and perspectives in the interim, but the changes in me I could say had been 100% my own. My moves on the chessboard of life had been mine.

Both of these amazing women would remind me to ensure that if I do find myself at odds with other women in my life, I should look at myself and ensure that they are not behaving as a reflection of me. Having been bullied in middle and high school, I can unequivocally state that I made a conscious effort to be a good person in life. I have intentionally chosen not to be a mean or bitter person. I try my best to give others the benefit of the doubt.

Having said all that, I have my boundaries. I have lines that I have chosen not to cross anymore. I used to be the one who was always reaching out – always the one making the effort. Two people in my past, a guy I was in a relationship with years ago, and a family member made me realize that it was unhealthy to want to be with someone who did not want to be with me. Trying to force something that had passed its time was not helping either of us; I had to let it go. Chartering the borders of codependency was not a good place to be. I’ve worked with some amazing women over the years at different companies and had high hopes for long-term friendships but saddened to find a lack of mutual effort to foster those friendships when life took our careers and lives into different places.

Understanding certain people with different personalities has proven to be challenging and even more so with those who may remain, of necessity, within your sphere for years to come. I cannot influence others to be good people, to receive me as I am, or gifts of goodwill, but when overtly rejected, I can choose to block as many inlets into my life as possible to retain my peace. As much as this means that mutual persons may be affected, I refuse to be played by others in manipulative ways.

My friends and family are those who open themselves up to getting to know me, those who receive my gifts, who honestly tell me when I’m in the wrong, those who support my efforts to step out of my comfort zone, and especially those who make the mutual effort to reach out to me. There are some friends I call family and some people I no longer call family. It is the nature of life and the preservation of healthy boundaries.