A Serendipitous Meeting on the Road: Womanhood, Friendship, and the Return to Purpose

Yesterday, while traveling to another city for work, I experienced one of those precious, life moments. The journey was meant to be practical, focused on schedules and responsibilities. I did not expect anything beyond work.

Yet day offered me something far more meaningful.

I met a dear friend, spontaneously, gently, and unexpectedly. It was a meeting that felt soft and sweet, and deeply grounding. A gift I had not planned for, but one that filled the entire day with warmth and meaning.

In her presence, I felt honored. I felt seen. And I felt a deep sense of gratitude for friendship, gratitude for friends who hold us with care, and for the safety that exists when we feel truly understood.

A Question That Opened a Deeper Truth

We have known each other for many years. Like most meaningful relationships, our friendship has moved through many seasons, ease and challenge, expansion and uncertainty, joy and grief.

We grew together not only through shared experiences, but through the evolving understanding of ourselves as women in this world.

Over a shared meal, our conversation naturally turned to life purpose, a topic we have returned to many times over the years, often at moments of change.

My friend has dedicated her life to working with children. As she spoke about her work, there was a calm clarity in her voice. She is living her purpose, supporting children, creating safer environments, and serving the world through care, and action.

Listening to her, I felt both inspired and gently reflected back to myself. Then she asked me a question — simple, loving, and powerful: “Do you still feel the same clarity about your purpose as you once did?”

It was a strong question. One that invited honesty rather than certainty.

At this stage of my life, clarity does not arrive as it once did. The past years and months have been a time of closing many chapters, chapters shaped by growth, grief, and transformation. The new is arriving, but slowly. It is still forming, still unclear.

In that in-between space, purpose can feel quiet.

I shared this with her, feeling emotions rise as I searched for words. My friend met me with silence, the kind of silence that feels safe. The kind that allows truth to surface without judgment. In that moment, I felt deeply held.

The Roots of Purpose: Safety, Connection, and Compassion

Turning inward, I began to recognize the themes that have always guided me: Connection. Compassion. Inclusion. Safety.

Growing up in a patriarchal culture, living through war, and witnessing violence left deep imprints on my body and spirit. These experiences shaped my longing for a world where women and girls feel safe — emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

These experiences anchored my commitment to advocating for the rights of women and girls, and for all those who identify as women.

Purpose, I realized, is often born where safety was once missing.

A Promise to the Girl I Once Was

As I spoke, something became clear.

My desire to support women and girls reaches back to my teenage years, to moments of isolation, exclusion, and fear. It felt like a promise I once made, to my younger self, that I would protect her.

That I would become the woman she needed.

Where there was silence, I choose voice.
Where there was exclusion, I choose belonging.
Where there was violence, I choose care and protection.

That promise quietly became my purpose. My friend helped me articulate something essential: Our purpose is often connected to the most challenging experiences of our lives.

And we can express it in many ways, through creative work, community building, advocacy, education, or simply by how we show up for others.

What matters is remembering: the core values that live within us, the moments when we felt unsafe or unseen, and how we choose to transmute those experiences into protection, care, and solidarity for others.

Purpose does not need to be loud. Sometimes it is simply the act of creating safety where it once did not exist.

Womanhood as a Shared Language

As our conversation continued, we found ourselves immersed in a shared understanding of womanhood, not as a label, but as a lived experience.

We spoke of sisterhood, of mutual care, of the responsibility and tenderness we feel toward other women and girls. We shared a quiet commitment to continue supporting one another, and to keep building spaces rooted in dignity, empathy, and safety.

In that moment, I was reminded: Sometimes purpose does not arrive as a clear answer.
Sometimes it arrives as a feeling of being understood. And sometimes, it is reflected back to us through the women who walk beside us.

That unexpected meeting reminded me that the most important journeys do not always happen in distant places or planned destinations.

Sometimes, they happen at a table shared between two women, where stories are honored, silence is safe, and purpose softly finds its way home.