“Gone Girlfriend”

I read a lot of books written by women for other women. Also, a lot of blogs, articles, posts, social media shout-outs and shoe descriptions on Zappos. I’ve noticed a lot of ladies I admire and respect like to write a lot about girlfriends. Specifically, how phenomenal theirs are. Like, really and truly PHENOMENAL. And something isn’t sitting right with me.

Each and every time I read this kind of, ‘ode to my girlfriends’, I feel itchy. What is it, exactly, that makes me uncomfortable? Is it envy, regret, desire, or remorse, from feeling less than, lacking, inept, or inadequate? I don’t think so, because I too have phenomenal friends. But still, maybe a little, though I’m not hitting the nail quite on the head here. It’s some of that, some of the time, but overwhelmingly it’s unease because I sense I’m not being told the whole story. I’m a read-between-the-lines kind of gal (skeptic fits nicely here too) and I often feel like something got left out in these gushing guffaws about girlfriends.

It seems these writers have gaggles of girlfriends, whom are each and every one, the BOMB! Their oh-so-very special and exceptionally fortifying friendships are must haves and they simply can’t live without them. These women live and die by and for their gregariously gifted girlfriends. What is that I smell? With me, when something sounds too good to be true, I go with the latter. And this repetitive and unabashed bestie boasting is sounding way, way too good.

God, I love my girlfriends. Girlfriends, you know I love you. BUT…. ladies, can we please tell it like it really is here? A little more like, “girlfriends, you can’t live with them and you can’t shoot them, I mean live without them?” Because on what planet do women regularly and repeatedly come together in friendship, even when they adore each other, and the results are exclusively rainbows and unicorns, 24/7? Not on this one. So please, tell me the whole story if you’re going to tell me any of it.

I moved around a shit-ton when I was growing up; attending something like seven schools in three or four different cities by the time I got to high school. And making new friends but keeping the old was not a song I put on my mixed tapes back then (but the theme song from St. Elmo’s Fire was). Even just making the new friends was not my forte, let alone the astounding feat of keeping them. In (even more self-effacing) fact, I didn’t get really good at making friends until, wait for it, until I finished high school, graduated from college, got married, and then birthed the girlfriend magnets that babies are. Once the babies came, it was girlfriends galore.

I finally learned to make, keep and then to deeply cherish, value and depend on girlfriends during the stay-at-home-to-mom-it years and nothing has changed since. I still need them like water and air. BUT…in reality, at least in mine, having girlfriends is sometimes akin to having feisty ponies that every once in a while might buck you off, not just unicorns. And more like occasionally encountering unpredictable meteors that are brilliant and magnificent but also might burn, not exclusively rainbows.

I am hearting one particular female author hard right now, in part because she writes honestly about her life with utter abandon, claiming she has not one ounce of shame in her body and thus she is able to write about it ALL. I do have some shame, and I can’t shake all of it though I try, so I write the truth not because I’m shameless, but because I think it’s the only way. To feel normal, sane, less lonely, more understood, accepted and, to get hate mail.

Here’s how it really goes down with girlfriends. They are essential and also elusive. They are the real deals that sometimes put up facades. They are great companions and also changelings that can resemble siblings you need a nice long break from. They are fun, helpful, supportive and they mean well. And they can be downers and leave you high and dry when you need them the most because they don’t mean well at all sometimes. I know it sounds like I’m describing both friends and enemies here, but no, I’m still just talking about friends. Both the friends we have and the friends we are.

It ALL goes down in friendships, you know it does. So let’s actually say that it does and quit risking making women feel like every last one of the gazillion girlfriends we are supposed to have should all be skipping in delightful rings around us while singing us Justin Timberlake songs and lovingly handing us donuts or kale or wine (whichever one we’re currently into because they should know AND respect our choice) to help calm the swirling seas in our lives. Not one of us can handle this pressure.

I fear it may sound like I’m on the attack here, and so I’m switching the focus to me, me, me, me, me. And now that my voice is tuned let me tell you, I am an amazing girlfriend. And also, I really suck at being a girlfriend. Sometimes I get it all just right; the front and center time, the phone time, the email time, the meet-you-there time. Sometimes the loving, consoling, balancing, laughing, forgiving, not judging, supporting, trusting, giving, empathizing, agreeing, helping, waiting, hair-holding, listening, and the oh-no-he-di’int!-but-if-he-did-I-will-cut-him-ing, are all my jam. And sometimes, I’m not even in the vicinity of just right. Sometimes I’m really quite lost and just trying to find my way back to these women I love to love but sometimes can’t even.

I will acknowledge that I might have a slightly skewed view towards girlfriends, given that I’m a supreme introvert. And as such, sometimes I like people, but most of the times I need to be alone, to be able to get to a space in which I like people again. And yes, ‘people’ includes the women I call my friends. Those lucky ducks. It’s a vicious cycle and one that I did not get in line to sign up for; instead it’s how I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Though the wonderful part of being an introvert escapes me so I’m just trusting I’ll see it someday.

Introverted tendencies and obstacles aside, I know I am not the only one to have had girlfriend trouble. I have had lots of girlfriends confide in me over the years about other girlfriends who have bothered them, ignored them, scorned them, hurt them, left them, forgot them, or took them for granted, for fools, or for less than important. And I’ve sung this song right back to them, in perfect harmony.

Women are complex and multi-faceted creatures. We feel all the feels all the time and we don’t come with manuals. Good luck to anyone trying to figure out how to expertly operate us, and woe to the one trying to learn to control us. Just because we are girlfriends and we have girlfriends does not mean we are any less unpredictable, unmoored, or uncertain at times. Tell me you know of a woman who does not resemble these remarks, and I’ll tell you she’s likely a man.

There are times when girlfriends let each other down only to eventually pick each other back up again, and occasions when our friendships end abruptly or fade away over time. Our grievances can be trivial or monumental, short-lived or long lasting, mutual or one-sided. Female friendships are not flat lines, they are vital and ever changing and potentially erratic. This is the real that I, and many of my girlfriends, have come up against and lived through, whether intramural or intermural in scope. This is the real that I benefit from when I hear about it from other women. Not the sugarcoated, prettied up for the page and edited version of girlfriendome. Gag. Please, no.

I know some women have copious wonderful and noteworthy friendships with some tip-top, first-rate, cream-of-the-crop ladies. And I know some women sorely lack these relationships or struggle amidst their juggle to maintain them and they regret this immensely. At one time or another, I’ve had each of these scenarios in my life. In any case, no woman should be left behind, and so about girlfriends, can we begin to include a sentence or two about how, this one time, at Band Camp, this one friend was really selfish and soooo very hard to take? Or this other time at Band Camp, it was really hard to make any friends at all. Or this one other time, also at Band Camp, I was a bee-yotch of the most epic proportions to my girlfriend for no good reason at all. And then, after some time passed, I came sniffing around for forgiveness, or I didn’t, and she learned to love me again (after she beat my ass) or she didn’t. Or, she left me and I haven’t heard from her since. However the sentences go, can we make them real? Can we tell the whole truth?

Life is hard AND life is good. Girl, you know it’s true, ooh-ooh-ooh…. And likewise, girlfriends are hard AND girlfriends are good. That’s all I’m asking to read in print. That since both things are true, we tell about both of the things.

P.S. ~ Now, please, don’t all of you clamor to try to be my new friend all at once, restrain yourself if at all possible. Thank you.

About Jodie: Her mission is to help lead people out of loneliness and back in to love and if she can make people laugh while doing that, well then, for her that’s the ultimate trifecta. She read some words that helped her heal and is astounded by that mechanism; she wants to be part of it. She wants to turn around and help the next one in line via the telling and the sharing, the writing and the reading, the connection and the healing. Check out her blog, Utter Imperfection and follow her for more imperfection on Facebook and Instagram @utterimperfction.

Photo Credit: “Girlfriend Selfie” ~ Tammy Short