A little over 18 months ago, I launched a website and I called it @dearmolly. Here’s why:
Dear Molly sums up all things good about women: Strength, support, loyalty, courage and friendship are what the name dear molly means for me.
You see my best friend is called Melissa, shortened often to Molly. We’ve been best friends since we were 12 years old.
There’s nothing out of the ordinary about our friendship, but at the age of 23 it was tested by the extraordinary. You see, at that age, I was run over by a garbage truck on a pedestrian crossing. From the moment the truck hit me up until I was rushed into emergency I was fully conscious.
The accident changed me physically and emotionally in ways I never thought possible with repercussions that were unimaginable. I learnt very quickly about the true meaning of friendship. About what it means to have people around you, who love and support you, who care for you, and who cheer for you.
No better example of a friend can be this.
Melissa and I, some many months after my accident are out together. We are crossing a road in Sydney. As usual she’s talking nonstop, walking at a pace that’s almost at a standstill to ensure I can keep up. Weighted down by the casts and bandages that cover my legs, my broken body gripping onto the two crutches that are supporting me, I’m not focusing on what she says. The pain is too great and the fear of falling over so very real.
The shuffle, which I just manage, gets me to the edge of a road and suddenly I freeze. I know it’s going to take me minutes to cross the smallest of distances and I’m almost waiting with baited breath for a car or worse, a truck, to come at me.
Melissa senses my fear and without hesitation, steps out and says in her loud schoolteacher voice: ‘You’ve already been hit, I’ll take the next hit for you’. She crosses in front of me onto the busy road, holding up her hand to stop any cars that are coming towards us. I smile at her, we laugh. Hell, if we didn’t laugh we would have cried and we make it across the road.
Fast forward nearly 19 years and here we are. Both married, with kids, full lives and still best friends. When I came to name my site, there was no better fit for me.
That loyalty, that type of friendship, that support, that understanding, that level of social connection is something, which I hope women find when they connect with us. Now more than ever, female connection, empowerment and support are critical; and for each of us to rise we must first build one another up.
