Relating to Jane Fairfax

Do you remember Jane? Fairfax? from Emma? If you are not a dedicated fan of Jane Austen, you may not quite get this post. Please read on... just consider yourself warned.
Do you remember the part in Emma, where we are beginning to discover some things about the character Jane? She's orphaned, penniless, elegant & secretly engaged to "what's-his-name". Well, I never really got her. I have thought her singing lovely, her manners cool and her taste in men predictable. I have never lost sleep over this I simply enjoy observing minor characters more closely when I view a movie more than once. Well, she is one of them, minor, but also a bit strange. I have never minded her reduced circumstances, her talent, her beauty. I have just been curious and somewhat at a loss of why she relates so well to her aunts, Mrs. & Miss Bates. I have found myself starring, like you would at a monkey throwing poo in a zoo, at their family. How was she not annoyed by them as most everyone else was? Did she really enjoy and delight in them as she appeared to? How did she feel safe and loved with two such strange birds?
I was thinking about this as I went to a gathering last night.
Some women from my church got together to eat, do projects & to talk. I enjoyed it. I enjoy them. And for a brief moment I realized that I totally get Jane Fairfax. (I am in no way comparing these fun, lively, creative & engaging ladies to the Bates' ladies.) I am, however, finding friends and confidants in unexpected places. When I was with those ladies I felt like I could say or do anything, (I am not saying I should), simply because they don't mind me. They will talk with me or not, they laugh with me, are willing to listen & show on their faces their delight at seeing me. They are open to me asking "why" or "how", they share trinkets of wisdom from their experience, they laugh freely. And even though these are things I treasure in my closest peer-age friends, there is a difference in the delight and acceptance from my older friends...and no I don't know what it is. Maybe it is a difference in me when I am with them. Maybe it is knowing that I can't be like them yet, because they have a few years on me. Maybe it is relating to people who have made it through what I am going through, and seeing that they haven't lost a leg or anything. I just like it. I treasure sitting down with my aunt after everyone has gone to bed and hearing what she is thinking about. I love catching a few moments of an older women's time and knowing and being known by her. My favorite part about Saturdays, which I spend working at church all day, is when my Mumsy and her 2 close friends pop in to decorate and set up for church. I love to hear them kindly bicker over where to put the flowers, or what color best brings out the banner for that week. It brings me such hope that they are still a group of goofy girls who want to talk and hang out. Often one of them will stop in to my little cave and talk to me for a moment and I just love it.
So, for a little part of the evening yesterday I got Jane Fairfax. She is probably like me, and is surprised but grateful for finding friends in unexpected places, even if those "places" are stages of life.