I haven’t always been that good at picking good girlfriends, or at being thankful for the really good ones. I’m not sure when exactly, but both of these things have definitely changed.
At our wedding, I inadvertently caused a small scandal by inviting a few of my friends to help me get ready. We didn’t have a wedding party other than my sister and Roy’s brother, so it was my way of including those friends privately. Then, I remember thinking a lot about those women that were essential to who I’d become at that moment, those that had brought me there, if you will, and those were the ones I invited.
Life is different now.
I’m still thankful for those women, and many more, but now I’m thankful in that I recognize there are people I can really depend on for all my (and our) daily trials and tribulations. That the standard needn’t be serious or formal. There is a lightness that has come with this shift, a joy and a profound thankfulness.
Roy said something to me recently after an evening with one of my mommy friends and her family– that he loved our banter in that it was totally fun and smart and exciting and not competitive.
Another mommy friend had a friends-only Thanksgiving party Saturday (their 9th annual), and watching her around her friends, recognizing I’d been welcomed into a family of people she’s known her whole life (“should I have warned you that once you’re in I don’t let go?”) made me feel immensely fortunate for all that they add to ours.
One of my oldest and dearest friends came over with her and her husbands entire immediate family on Friday, many of whom I’ve known for almost 20 years. At the end of Thanksgiving itself, Jos and I had a drunken lovefest (I mean, she is practically my sister-wife and she did delivery my son).
I could go on and on…the point being that I guess you have to be pretty whole yourself to really appreciate and promulgate the same in the people around you. A couple of weeks ago, I felt a little Mean Girls’d by a subset of women in our local moms group, who omitted to invite me (and others) for a moms night out. In thinking about why I was bothered, I realized I wasn’t really bothered. I mean, my ego was (I’ve never not been a cool kid, and it hurt my feelings a little to think that I wasn’t perceived that way any more), but I find most of that group in particular to be competitive and judgmental and kind of nasty, and I realized– I have better friends than this– why do I care?
I have two points to make here. First (and I say this as a girl who was a guy-friends-only-girl for a long time), women friends- the really really good ones- are special. We get through things together. Second (and excuse me for laying on the cheese), when we are at our best, we really do make the world go round. I’m serious! I don’t know what we or the men in our lives would do without our collective wisdom (cause you know they aren’t really talking about it with each other like we are).
I love you guys.