Emily German

I have had a hard time all my life trusting women, liking women, or counting women as my friends. Until the recent past, I don’t think there was a single woman I ever knew whom I could consider “close” or “kindred.” To me, women were always (at worst) connivers, deceivers, gameplayers, and abandoners. At best, I considered them shallow and weak, lacking in real depth or intelligence. I kept them far away from me for many years. My friends were all male - my “brothers.” I felt no bond of sisterhood with any woman. I was content with being one of the guys. This was true even in childhood.

I made one female friend in my early twenties, and I have kept her to this day. Even so (and though she doesn’t know it), I have kept her at a certain distance, and preferred the company of my male friends over hers. I don’t depend on her, or confide in her. We are friends in a very remote way.

Then I met Emily.

It was a lark, a whim. “We are going to pick up Emily at the train station. Wanna go?” I was bored enough to say yes to my male friends, Mike and Tim. Either of them could tell you that I said (more than once), “I can’t believe I am going with you to pick up A GIRL. She better be tolerable. You know how I feel about GIRLS!”

I expected nothing of her - just that we would meet, and I would fade her to the background of my life, as I had with every other female I had ever met.

What can I say? Perhaps it is age, or a little maturity, or some other such turning of the page...or perhaps (as I believe) it is just Emily. She opened her mouth and started to speak, and the first thing I thought was “Hey, she’s funny.” So, I listened a little longer. Then I thought, “Hmm...smart, too. She might be pretty tolerable for the next few days. This won’t be so bad.”

Over the next few days, we (my male friends and I) hung out with her quite a bit. Every time we did, I would spend some time just sitting back and listening to the way she expressed herself, the way she interacted with the world. I waited for the feeling that she was just a “typical” woman, worthy of little attention. It never came. Instead, she impressed me at every turn with her strength, her honesty, her sincerity, and her heart. Most of all, I recognized the Feminine in her - the parts that are emotional and empathic, the parts that nurture and support, the parts that feel and teach and give. I had always thought of these qualities as “feminine” qualities, and had judged myself and all other woman as weak for having them. These were the parts of me I had denied and repressed all my life, the things I tried to squash in myself.

Em doesn’t just have these qualities. She embodies them. She is not ashamed of them as I have been for so long. If she feels like laughing, she laughs. If she feels like crying, she cries without shame. If she isn’t feeling 100% sure of herself, if she needs reassurance, she tells you. If she is feeling confident, she is so sure of herself as to be a force to be reckoned with. When she is listening to you, she listens with her whole heart..and when she talks about herself, it is with a sincerity and objectivity I have known in no one else.

She is the Feminine Divine, the embodiment of all those life-giving, loving, nurturing, protective, and emotional energies. She is all these things, and she is the opposite of “weak.”

Since I met her, I have actually opened up my life and heart to other women. I stopped judging women for being women, and just started listening to them instead. Mostly, I stopped judging myself for being a woman. I started to appreciate the feminine in ways I had never imagined, and I can now count a number of women as “real” friends. For the first time in my life, I am reaching out to women, and respecting what I get back in return.

I now have female friends - each of them has been a blessing.

But, there is only one Emily. I am grateful for her every day. I get sisterhood now. I understand that women simply have things to offer that men do not. I finally got that every woman needs a woman to walk with her through life - because we all need to be nurtured every now and then. I learned all this after a lifetime of denying it. I learned it because of Emily, and my life is better every day for knowing her.