“If you want a thing well done,

get a couple of old broads to do it.”

— Bette Davis

The other night I had dinner with two long-time friends that I hadn’t seen for a while and we were catching up. To anyone listening to us, you’d think we’d be horribly depressed. We’d all gone through some bad times, I mean really bad times: deaths, disease, failing parents, troublesome children, physical ailments. But we sat drinking margaritas alternately laughing and crying and really were quite full of joy.

As I looked at these women and thought about all the women I call friends, I thought, “Wow, we are a bunch of tough old broads.” And I thought of Bette Davis’s quote, “If you want a thing well done, get a couple of old broads to do it.”

These women are running businesses, trying new careers, helping build houses, learning to kayak, climbing mountains, taking care of parents and husbands, facing serious illnesses themselves, walking 6 miles a day, teaching yoga, getting acquainted with new grandchildren and basically living life fully.

There isn’t a self-pity bone in any of their bodies. I was reminded of the metaphor of Kintsugi, which is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — a metaphor for embracing our flaws and imperfections. We all have external and internal broken places. We have scars, imperfections and well-worn bodies, but we also have compassion, grit, grace and humility. We keep on keeping on.

To paraphrase a popular saying:

Here’s to Tough Old Broads:

May we know them;

May we be them;

May we raise them.