In honor of TOM’s much-belated-and-therefore-much-celebrated arrival, and the ensuing agony and misery, I thought it would be beneficial to take this opportunity to remind myself of all the reasons I completely adore being a girl. Because, you know, right now it’s hard to remember some of them. So…here’s my top ten, just right off the top of my head, in no particular order:
- Shoes. Ahh, shoes…
- The ability to laugh hysterically at absolutely nothing with my girlfriends, for hours, and consider it time well-spent.
- The capacity for a deep and abiding love of really good chocolate, to a degree and with an intensity that the majority of men simply cannot comprehend. I know, there are some. But it’s more typically a female trait, for some reason.
- Multiple orgasms.
- The endless variety and quality of fashion choices that are available to me. No, I cannot afford most of them, and yes, I would probably look fairly ridiculous in most of them. And yes, I live in comfortable clothes and wouldn’t last ten minutes in nine-tenths of what I drool over. But they’re out there, and being a girl, I get an enormous amount of enjoyment out of just looking at them and imagining myself in them. I feel true, deep empathetic pain for men, who have such limited options. And I know they don’t actually care, which mystifies me…
- The experience of feeling an entire person come into being within me, growing from a single cell to an entire, living, breathing, squirming, beautiful person, and knowing that this amazing, breathtaking creature was nurtured and sheltered and created within my being. And, part and parcel of that one, that moment (both times!) when the endless shredding agony of childbirth finally ended and I looked down at that tiny person in my arms and felt a piece of my soul detach and relocate forever within that tiny, wondrous creature. (But I think fathers get that last part, too, though it might feel a little different. So I’m not counting that as a separate one.)
- Hair, and the endless styling possibilities thereof. I know, I KNOW, I’m shallow and narcissistic, but I love my hair when it looks really great. I have a thing about hair. There’s just something about the feeling you get when you’ve spent ages getting it just right and you get to walk out of the house knowing it looks amazing. Yes. I know. Shallow. We covered that already. I’m at peace with my own shallow-osity.
- Chick flicks. It’s not like I watch them constantly, but it’s nice knowing I can, and I can cry and get stupidly emotional and not feel remotely self-conscious.
- Being capricious and unpredictable and endlessly changing, and feeling the parallels in the cycles and seasons of nature and my own body’s growth and change and maturation. Women’s bodies, and our very natures, are so deeply connected to nature and the cycles and seasons of the earth and sky…and it is a beautiful, wonderful thing.
- My husband, the other half of me. Because, you know, he’s not gay, so if I were a man, I’d have missed out. And there’s no time when I more enjoy being a woman than when his arms are around me and I feel like I’m where I belong and everything is right with the world.
- I know, I’m over ten. But I have to mention shoes again. They deserve a double listing.
There are lots of other things I could mention, but to my mind, a lot of the things that are generally associated with being female – gentleness, empathy, compassion, a kind heart, a soft touch, selflessness and putting others before yourself – are things I have personally witnessed in quite a few men. So I’m not listing those, though I will say that the times when I feel the most feminine, the most womanly, and the most beautiful, are all times when those qualities are uppermost in my being.
I said today that no matter how miserable and uncomfortable and difficult it sometimes is, being female, I would never want it any other way. A friend (male) asked why? The list above is only a small sample of why. Some of them are silly, and some are sort of sappy…and they’re all very specifically mine. Every woman is so different, which is such a beautiful thing…so what is it that you love about being a girl?
Or, heck, why not? If you’re a guy, what is it you love about that?
Whichever it is, and whatever your reasons, I think you should celebrate them. There’s no better person to be than exactly who you are, exactly the way you are right at this moment. And tomorrow, it’ll all be different. So celebrate it now, while you can.
