Soooooo choice!
Lately, I’ve been contemplating my level of maturity (or the lack of). I’m 30. I’m without child. I’m single. I’m without child. Wait. I said that already. And, I wanna play. The problem is I think that people don’t take me seriously. Even as an educated professional, I feel like I’m viewed as a 25 year old, new graduate that doesn’t get the complexities of maturation. Continue reading
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After reading Sport’s post earlier today, I had every intention of writing some witty banter about how having a couple of Bébé’s kids that-would-best-benefit-from-someone-else raising-them would be effing hilarious.
Poppa theVar?
However, the more I thought about it; the more I realized: kids might be great someday. Having kids, allowing experiences I never had, granting them educational opportunities that would afford triumph after triumph–wow! That’s some dream that could be an amazing reality.
Dreaming aside, would it worth it to give up the life I have now. The freedom that makes me…well, me. These thoughts pop into my head from time-to-time. Okay, rarely, but when they do. Man, it’s pretty incredible. Me. Being a dad. Poppa theVar. Sounds good, huh?! Maybe not, but you know what I’m saying.
Who knows what may happen during this 30s ride. All I know: thinking about this is when life gets real.
–theVar On The Go
Wow. Today’s guest post from Becky over at Release the Kracken Please is one of a journey to finding sisterhood. This is a woman’s tale of learning, loving, accepting, and embracing the beauty of true friendship. This is the kinda post that makes me thankful Sport and I started the TTTM blog. The thirties truly give birth to all kinds of stories, lessons, and revelations. Everyone, meet Becky, the now boy’s-girl’s girl.
I recently turned 35 in June and looking back I keep wondering how I made it through all those pickles, hurdles, and dilemmas of a life lived spontaneously.
I’ve done A LOT of dumb stuff in my day – drinking and drugging with reckless abandon, impulsively jumping in the back of band’s van for a tour up and down the west coast, and shacking up with dudes that didn’t deserve me.
It’s been a heart breaking, blissful, hilarious, and tedious journey and the one thing that stands out, for me, is the people along the way that smoothed the path, pushed me along, kicked me in the ass and shouted, “Come on Hensley!” when I needed to hear it most.
Fortunately, a lot of those people have been amazing women.
I moved to Missoula, MT when I was an idealistic, somewhat feminist 23 years old – and inadvertently took up with a group of nerdy rock ‘n rollers that would end up being lifelong friends. Within that group were a band of women (who, coincidentally, were in a band) and they blew my naïve little mind. We’ll call them Sasshole.
Sasshole owned themselves, their hang ups, their attitudes, their sexualities, and their personalities with a kind of aplomb I’d never known. Rowdy, riotous women – and they knew themselves amongst other women! I was in awe. I followed them around hoping they wouldn’t out me for being passive and unsure – and they didn’t. Well, they did in the form of torturous teasing and heckling, but the more they teased…the more I teased back. I did my best to keep up and I gained footing with them. Soon every secret was revealed over hang over breakfasts and in dark corners of dive bars – every vulnerability was considered and handled with care. I had best friends. And they were girls.
When I was younger, a teenager, I found myself gravitating toward guys. I was able to maneuver amongst them fairly easily as it never came with the complications that girls seemed to.
These guys were my people – we beer bonged together, smoked pot together, played Tekken together.
Because of this, I soon labeled myself a guy’s girl.
But I knew that something was missing. I was envious of girls that had girlfriends…lady friends they could trust when they had quandaries and predicaments.
Even at 23 I remember thinking, while in Sasshole’s esteemed company, I don’t like girls – girls are mean. Oh, you know the rhetoric – you’ve heard it from so many girls, I’m sure.
“I hate girls – their dramatic and devious.”
“I just can’t be friends with girls.”
“I’m a guy’s girl.”
Girls bagging on girls. Hatin’. Talking smack and distancing themselves from female alliances.
Relics of our collective high school experience where ‘Mean Girls’ ruled and anyone that challenged the norms and standards of teenage values were a threat.
And there it is…the word that defines it all – girls feel threatened by girls!
It took me a long time to explain that sick reaction, that revulsion, and the imminent comparisons that would come flooding into my head when I felt threatened by another girl. And the worst part is how all of it blinded me from the sad reality that the other girl was probably feeling the same way.
Sasshole never made me feel that way – perhaps it was a function of maturity and experience or the fact that they respected their female friendships enough to protect what they had cultivated.
Don’t get me wrong – we had our fair share of fights. Some of them knock down, drag outs…but that’s how relationships work. It can’t be all rosy rock ‘n roll after parties!
And still, we loved each other – like really loved each other. We supported each other’s lives, choices, and struggled together.
Something changed in me amongst these women. Something grew to appreciate how much I needed my female friends. I recognized their struggle as so similar to my own – body and mental health issues, boyfriends, addictions. My empathy of their experience allowed me to shake off the threat and be a friend.
Now, at 35, I can say with all honesty – I have no clue where I would be without my female friendships.
I have so many rad lady friends – each relationship multifaceted, priceless, and supportive in its own right.
With the help of a handful of amazing women, I do a monthly crafty get together called, “The Denver Craft Ninjas”. Each meet up gives us an opportunity to hang heavy with all different kinds of women and open up a dialogue about our jobs, passions, our families, our bodies…always over mimosas and a buffet of indulgent carry-in food.
The lovely ladies of Sasshole – yeah, they’re still around! They are mothers, business owners, notable folks in the Missoula community, and one is a well respected probation officer! And those women that I spent time slamming beers with, laughing, crying, and holding each other up started out as friends and those friends became sisters.
I guess the point here is…it took me far too long to identify the threat and disarm it.
To see through all the garbage that tangles up how we see ourselves in relation to other women.
I hate the thought of a life without Sasshole – a life without ladies who get me.
So, I say to you ladies – no matter your age, if you’re one of those ladies that say, “I don’t like girls” – Rethink it. Seriously.
Don’t make me call Sasshole on your girl hatin’ ass!
Sport
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