Hey Ladies
Think you can handle my love
Are you for real
Okay, so I have a lot of work to do today and this next week in general. I'm burning the candle everywhere. Well, technically I'm actually burning the licorice candle in the bathroom, and the smell is grand. I had a nice little personal mini-spa this morning with some of my favourite Lush stuff. Two days ago I got a great deal on a very nice blue top at Value Village, and I actually really love shopping, especially at the thrift shop. (Cue music.)
I just had a great recommendation for a hairstylist here in Edmonton, which is a huge relief, because while I love the stylist experience in Saskatoon where I grew up, commuting 6 hours for a haircut is too impractical for my practical little heart. Also, my time in Saskatoon at Christmas this year is more limited than I would prefer, so it's vital for me to use as much of it for family and friends as I possibly can, and a 4-6 hour perm is honestly a waste of my Saskatoon time.
I've been looking into those super cute Jamberry nail wraps lately but I don't know anyone personally who's an Edmonton rep... I am hoping to order myself some soon, but I'd really prefer to get a trial set... Maybe someone has some they don't like I can experiment with at home. Mmm. Home. Yesterday I made my famous Greek Lemon Rice soup, and it turned out better than it ever has before. Combine that with starting to clean my shambly office and working at optimizing the house storage system and you'd better believe that I'm excited about being a housewife.
Next week, I am dressing up in Regency era English apparel, watching the entire A&E version of Pride and Predjuice and eating dainty foods with tea and raspberry cordial with a girlfriend.
There's a thread running through everything I just said. I'm actually pretty girly.
And that is what I'm going to post about today. Being a girl. I've only recently connected with just how feminine I am. It's something my husband saw in me before I had fully seen it in myself. I remember cringing as he pointed out the great many ways that I am a girly-girl. Why cringing? Because I had some weird concepts in my head.
One of the things about being the descendant of women who were severely abused is that you pick up some odd and terrible notions about what it means to be a woman.
Lies I learned about being a woman during my childhood: Being a woman means that you're a worthless bitch. You're not worthy of notice. Being a woman means that what you have to say doesn't matter, that you're not in control. It means that you have nothing to offer anyone and shouldn't rock the boat.
When I was young, and even into University, the vast majority of my friends were boys. Partly this is because I was boy crazy, which I think gets worse when you despise everything about womankind, and partly this is because I just felt like I didn't get women. Sometimes I still feel that way, but doesn't everyone?
But I have turned a corner, you guys. Actually, there's fewer and fewer men that I am close to these days. It's not a slight to them at all, but I'm growing into who I really am as a woman, and after a young life that left me thinking that I needed a full bridesmen row at my wedding, having a lot of girlfriends now is really wonderful.
I have a lot in common with these new ladies in my life. We're loud and proud and strong. We're logical and emotional. We're pretty smart, but don't think that intelligence is everything or look down on others because of it. We value family. We enjoy a house full of happiness and laughter. We want to do better than our parents did - but not through the myth of progress in money and housing and such, but instead through teaching our sons and daughters to be incredible individuals and dealing with any hangups we might be giving them early - learning from them as they learn from us. We are creative and have the spark of life in our eyes.
I love these ladies. In fact, just today I added a new friend to my quiver-full of them, someone I hit it off with right quickly because she was all of these things and more - a complex, lovely new person with oodles of beauty to explore.
And as I look back at the last six years of my life since that moment that I cringed about being girly, I can smile so wide. In part, because I love my face and embrace it's warmth and cuteness, and in part because I've made it. After struggling for years to learn to love women, being a woman, and the women I love, I'm finally here.
It's an incredible feeling, knocking something like that off the list. So I had to share it.