I think it was Brene Brown who told a story about a village where all the women washed clothes together down by the river. When they all got washing machines, there was a sudden outbreak of depression and no one could figure out why. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn’t the washing machines in and of themselves . It was the absence of time spent doing things together. It was the absence of community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friends, we\u2019ve gotten so independent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re \u201cfine\u201d we tell ourselves even when in reality we\u2019re depressed, we\u2019re overwhelmed, we\u2019re lonely, and we\u2019re hurting. \u201cWe\u2019re fine, we\u2019re just too busy right now\u201d we say when days, weeks, months, and years go by without connecting with friends. I\u2019m fine, I\u2019m fine, I\u2019m fine. It\u2019s so easy to say even when it\u2019s not true. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve become so isolated and it\u2019s hard to know how to get back. It\u2019s so hard to know how to even begin to build the kind of relationships our hearts need. And I think In our current culture, it\u2019s just not as organic as it once was. It’s more work now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because you know, we have our own washing machines. We don’t depend on each other to do laundry, or cook dinner, or raise babies anymore. We don’t really depend on each other for much of anything if we’re being honest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Brene Brown\u2019s book Braving the Wilderness, she says that being lonely effects the length of our life expectancy similar to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. I don\u2019t say that to freak anyone out, but to let you know that the longing for connection is LEGIT. I think we\u2019ve treated friendship like a luxury for far too long; friendship isn\u2019t a luxury, it\u2019s a necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We don’t want it. We kind of need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Be independent. Be proud of it. But be an independent woman who realizes the value and the importance of opening the door to other good women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can do it alone, but you don’t have to. Islands are only fun for so long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is true magic when women come together and hold hands and share ideas and share stories and struggles and endless bowls of salsa. You use your gifts, and I’ll use mine, and then we’ll invite that girl over there who brings a completely different set of skills to the table we are building, and we’ll watch together as something miraculous unfolds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I guess that\u2019s why Amy and I started this page: because we believe there\u2019s got to be a way to come back to each other. We know it can be hard, but we know for sure it\u2019s worth it, and as always, we believe the sisterhood is big enough for all of us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thank you for taking this journey with us. We believe it’s an important journey. We believe it’s a good journey. We believe it’s a better journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We know we probably won’t change the whole world, but we sure hope we can change yours. We sure hope we can remind you that you’re never alone in this thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written by\u00a0Wonderoak by Jess Johnston<\/a>\u00a0&\u00a0Amy Weatherly<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo by Priscilla Du Preez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I think it was Brene Brown who told a story about a village where all the women washed clothes together down by the river. When they all got washing machines, there was a sudden outbreak of depression and no one could figure out why. It wasn’t the washing machines in and of themselves . It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/34EC07CD-915F-453A-9787-AE2CD6ABA3C9.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6wz1w-8Gx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33389"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33393,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33389\/revisions\/33393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wonderoak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}