Women Friends: Age is Irrelevant

The Barefoot Blogger was 50 years old when she started her career at IBM. Maybe that’s no big deal now, but years ago, “middle aged” women were not entering corporate jobs.

The work I took on — helping introduce the second generation IBM personal computer– was not only the hardest job I’d ever held, it was life-changing. It put me in a world of brilliant young men and women who didn’t think about the age of their workmate. Just what I could contribute to the tasks.

Perhaps the experience gave me the confidence I have today. To forge headlong into the unknown. Like moving to France, with little knowledge of the country, the culture or the language.

I know the IBM experience taught me that women friends defy age. Thirty-something girlfriends from that time are still buddies. Now they’re in their fifties.

Returning from my trip to South Carolina, I’m thinking of all the women friends I’ve reconnected with recently, and all the others who fill my life.

Last week I visited my dear “Ms. Dottie”, who is 93 years old. When we were next door neighbors in Beaufort, we were as close friends as there could be.

Now Ms. Dottie is frail in body and mind, living her last days in a nursing home. When I saw her, curled up in the bed, half asleep, half awake, I could barely recognize her. She had a hard time remembering me, too.

The beaded cap I gave her before I left for France was hanging on her bedpost. When I reminded her, she was glad to know where it had come from.

The “memory” tour to my old stomping grounds included the oyster roast, detailed in the last post, and lunch with girlfriends at our favorite haunts. Dinner “dates” were raucous with wine, food and Makers Mark flowing freely.

On the way back to Georgia, after all the gossip and hugs from the SC gals were done, I stopped off to see one more girlfriend who lives along the shore. We have been friends for fifty years. College sorority sisters. She welcomed me, literally, with open arms. Then she stuffed me with homemade chicken pot pie.

Someday I’ll write down what it’s like to have a friend as eccentric and special as she is. This southern belle is a story all in herself. For now I’ll just say, our brief day together was the perfect ending to this “girls reunion”.