I've never considered myself a girlfriend girl. Most of my childhood friends happened to be boys, and I shared their GI Joes and Transformers. In my teenage years, I opted out of the flying fur fests of hormonally charged adolescent female competition in favor of (somewhat geeky) after-school interests. And I preferred my view from the sidelines of sorority life in college.
It's not that I don't enjoy the company of my fellow girls. I was a Girl Scout and had 7 bridesmaids in my wedding, but I've always felt more at ease and able to be myself around the guys. My marriage is in fact the result of a very deep friendship with my husband, a car/beer/baseball loving GUY. And of course the bond with my favorite guy pal, my son, is one like no other.
But my outlook on female friendship changed when I became a mom. I'd been initiated into a whole new kind of sorority- one chartered on sleepless nights and endless piles of laundry, its rituals including the skillful layering of concealer, and one-handed typing. I began to feel connected to my comrades in a strangely comforting way. It's because whenever I see a woman pushing a stroller through the grocery store aisles, I know she too is struggling to remember the one thing on her list she needs most and forgot to write down. And ignoring the telltale spit up stain on her shoulder, I admire the sweater that was no doubt at the bottom of her laundry pile (if not in a long lost box labeled "pre-pregnancy clothes") just seconds before she stepped out the door.
Not only do I suddenly get my feminine peers better, I feel a once foreign sense of need for their fellowship. I find myself approaching new friendships with much less apprehension than before, and appreciating old friends more. I get tremendous value and comfort from relating and sharing, and occasionally even relishing in the guilty pleasure of gossip. I can laugh with my new found cohorts about whirled pea incidents and non-hairstyle-related blowouts, and vent about the frustrations of colic and teething. And while I don't see many toenail-painting slumber parties in my future (unless I have a daughter someday), I can see myself forming many more meaningful female friendships throughout this unique journey of raising children. Because I now feel truly connected to what makes us special as women, and having now been given the gift of motherhood can delight in sharing it with my fellow women.
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