Hey, stranger.

I recently got coffee with a friend. Who cares, right? 

Stay with me. This coffee date, unbeknownst to me, would escalate from something seemingly banal and insignificant into an event that I wrote three poems, an essay and two short stories about — and here I am writing about it again.

You’ve heard about this friend before — she’s the one who encouraged me to publish my poetry. She is one of those people that will never judge you, one of those people that will stop someone on the street to compliment them. She makes amazing, elaborate and delicious dinners for our friend group at least twice a week. During a phone call, my mom said that it sounds like she has a good head on her shoulders. 

“She’s got the best head on her shoulders,” I said back.

I love my friends with my entire being, but that seems to get lost in media. So much of the representation of female friendships revolves around fighting over men, or being “catty” with each other, or participating in an unspoken competition or beauty contest, or something else of the sort that’s just as vapid. Rarely do we see pure and genuine female friendship — that also passes the Bechdel test — that focus on the heart and soul of female bonds, even through the complexities and intricacies and complications that go hand in hand with any closeness. 

Speaking of which, I know other women who have dubbed some of their friend breakups to be more impactful and devastating than actual romantic breakups. Friendships between women are powerful. They hold inexplicable weight. Enough weight to the point where, if one falls through, it falls hard and smashes into pieces, and you keep stepping on the shards. Even years later, when you think you might finally be over it, something reminds you of your old friend and — ouch, another piece of glass.

There is something so deeply profound about friendship between women, something I’m not completely confident that I can articulate in words. Part of it has to do with the mutual understanding, the shared experience of womanhood, the act of seeing. Seeing each other. Seeing and relating to every occurrence, in some way, mirroring one another even if you have nothing in common. You are a reflection of me, no matter what. We are bonded in this way, and we always will be. That bond just comes with being a woman — it’s innate.

There was a moment when I was drinking my coffee and my friend was sipping her jasmine tea, and I handed her my sketchbook to draw in. We were just sitting, talking, whistling at the birds, taking turns drawing. We were simply existing in the same space, but I had this thought that was like, “did I know you before?”

There is this phenomenon about being a little kid where you meet another kid somewhere, like a park or on vacation or somewhere fleeting, and for those few hours you are together, you are best friends. You could’ve met each other that morning and become best friends before the afternoon. It didn’t matter. Kids are invincible to the rules and the regulations on friendship that we set as we grow older. After you hit a certain age, it all happens so quickly, and there’s no more of that “do you want to be friends?” mindset.

So I had this feeling wash over me while I was sitting with my friend, like maybe I had seen her before. I felt this connection with her, the same connection I felt with all the little girls I met for a day and never saw again, but still remember from time to time. Like, “Hey, I knew you.” That inkling, the one where you feel like you’ve known someone forever. It’s usually applied to romantic relationships, but it can be just as true, if not sometimes truer, for friendships. 

There is an element of connectedness that completely encompasses a friendship between women. Even when I try to write it down and explain and put it into words, it doesn’t do it justice. Perhaps that act of seeing, of understanding, is just something to be left unwritten. It lies in that shared glance between two friends —  an unspoken bond that transcends words.