Lean on me

Lean on me… when you’re not strong …

Remember that song? Bill Withers wrote it in 1972, which may have been the year you were born, or the year your children were born, or ten years before that, but the words are timeless. I’ve been thinking about them a lot.

I don’t have many close friends. All these years being a wife, mother, and writer, I never had time for friends. Now I do. There are things I want to discuss, and there are things I want to discuss with other women that only women will understand. But how to find good friends at this stage?

A major issue for me, and I think for most of us, is trust. How do I know that if I share something personal it won’t be batted around on social media the next day? Social media scares the heebie-jeebies out of me. I’m a private person. And proud. I don’t want to be ridiculed, and I want what I share with a friend to remain between friends.

I had a wonderful introduction to this last fall when I joined a group of women for a week on a one-house island. We talked about everything, trusting that what was said on the island stayed on the island. That element of trust required a leap of faith, both on the part of our hostess, who personally invited each of us there, and the seven other women who opened their minds and hearts to make it work.

Our hostess, the friend who trusted me enough to ask me along, set a courageous example. So I’m throwing my own island getaway of sorts, a virtual gathering on my website. You readers chose the name last fall – Hear Me Roar – and it’s for women who are strong or want to be, but need a boost.

I just might have a problem that you’ll understand, we all need somebody to lean on …

That’s the premise. But I need your help. What do you want to discuss? What most concerns you on a personal level? My readers are caring, smart, trustworthy women, and my website isn’t set up to go viral, making it isolated, much like an island. So what topic would lure you to this island?

This isn’t a contest, just me asking you to help pick the first subjects on the Hear Me Roar discussion board. Please tell me your choices either in a comment to this blog, through a Contact message, or, best of all, on the discussion board itself, where you’ll find a forum called What do you want to discuss?

Talk soon!