The Women Around You Were Never Your Competition

For a long stretch of my twenties, I kept a scoreboard I would have been embarrassed to admit to. Who was further ahead. Who had the nicer thing. Who seemed to have it more together than I did. Other women weren't my friends so much as my measuring stick, and it made me smaller and more tired than I understood at the time.

The scoreboard is a lie, and it's a lonely one.

What changed

Nothing dramatic. No single moment. Just a slow accumulation of women who refused to play the game I was playing.

The neighbor who dropped off dinner the week my second was born and asked for nothing back. The friend who celebrated my wins louder than I did. The woman at a community event who saw me standing alone and simply came over. None of them were keeping score. And around them, I finally put my own scoreboard down.

The women around you were never your competition. They're your people. It took me far too long to believe that — and everything got better once I did.

How to actually find them

People ask me where you find community like this, as if there's a store for it. There isn't. You build it the slow, slightly awkward way:

• Go first. Be the one who introduces herself. Be the one who invites.
• Be useful before you're impressive. Show up with the casserole. Watch the kids. Answer the text.
• Let yourself be helped. This is the hard one. Community is a two-way street, and refusing help keeps people at arm's length.

The whole point

This site, this little corner of the internet, is my attempt at going first. At building the thing I wish I'd found sooner — a place for women to stop competing and start growing together.

Pull up a chair. There's room, and you're wanted here.