Thankful in 2019

It’s time for my annual Thanksgiving post! This year I am thankful for fierce female friendships.

It’s no secret that I am a passionate feminist. Truly we all should be. Equality is important and women empowering women, that just gives me all the feels.

I’m thankful for the women in my life who are showing me that I’m a strong, loyal, loving, kind, and fabulous person. I’m thankful when they support me without judgment. I am thankful when they call me out when I’m not giving my best. I am thankful they love me fiercely always.

I’ve never been one to trust easily. I am much more a independent human than I am with a pack. But I am also extremely loyal and identify strongly as a team player.

Having women in my life who show me that I can trust them, come to them when I need help, and that they’re on my team too - that’s something that I never knew I could have.

This Thanksgiving, I am so thankful for you my fierce female squad. You absolutely know who you are and I just love you so much for showing me that women can be anything, everything, none of the things, whatever we want to be. You are my team, my family, and I am forever grateful for you.

Girl Gang

Do you guys remember when girls used to say "most of my friends are guys" or "I don't really get along well with other girls"?  Well I do - because I have absolutely been that girl and I cannot roll my eyes any harder at myself.

Thankfully - I've evolved and even more important, the world has evolved and we are in a fierce lady movement.  

As I was feeling extra grateful for the women in my life - I started to dig deeper into how I used to be the guy's girl and why I felt so proud of that label.  

I grew up a tomboy. An athlete.  Naturally, I was always around the boys.  I thrived on being well liked by men and identifying as someone they selected to be part of the inner circle.  I would poke fun at the women they poked fun at, roll my eyes at the girly girls, and pretended I was nothing like those girls.

Obviously I had all kinds of self esteem issues or I would have recognized that I was being just as awful as I pretended those other girls were.  But digging deeper - I think I had ingrained my value in what men thought of me.  And that I had to mold myself into what men wanted me to be.

I know what you're thinking and yes, this absolutely carried over into my dating life for a really long time.  I aimed to please; covered up my real self in order to be the perfect woman.  

Only until I discovered the importance of fierce lady friends did I truly learn to develop myself into the strong confident bad ass that you now see in front of you.  

Here's what I know for sure: Women who don't have female friends are not to be trusted.

I am more loving, fierce, and motivated because of the women in my life.  I am less judgmental, scared, and people pleasing because of the female influences around me. 

Don't get me wrong - my very best pal in the world is a man.  And he's the best out there.  But there's just something as a friend he cannot provide me as a man.  He keeps it real with me, encourages me to be everything I dream of, and he puts up with my psychotic breakdowns, but at the end of the day, I'm a girl.  And a girl needs other girls to relate to.

I think of my girl gang as my secret agents.  They're able to give me the heads up, the inside scoop, and the life lessons that go along with being female.  Chances are one of us has been through it, bought it, tried it - and has the down low for the rest of the squad.  

I'm not like other women.  I sometimes don't get along with types of women.  But I have a lot of female friends and I am thankful that they have taught me it's a damn good thing women are all different and don't all get along.  And because of that - I can appreciate and respect women can be and are whatever they want to be - but being one thing to fit one mold - is not it.  

The Easiest Relationship of Them All

Growing up - I was a people pleaser.  I never really knew who I was, who I wanted to be, or what I stood for.  So when it came to friendships, I put in a lot of work because I wanted to be liked and I craved having the inner circle that I saw those around me so easily obtaining.  For about 30 years of my life - I have thought that friendships were about putting in the same work you would in a romantic relationship.  And that's left me feeling really drained in a lot of my friendships.

Over the years I've matured, discovered who I am, and I've cut out the friendships that don't provide me any positivity.  But I've still got some growing to do in the area of choosing which friendships to invest in and which to let go.

One of my soulmates recently told me that friendships are the easiest relationships we have.  They are the only relationship that we get to choose because they enrich our lives.  You cannot choose your family and they are not easy to simply walk away from.  And when you're invested in a romantic relationships you cannot (or should not) be easily able to cut that out of your world.  But with friendships - you can truly say this person brings me happiness and I want them in my life.  If they don't, I will release them from my space.

I don't know why I found that so enlighteningly simple.  And I don't know why I've never seen friendships in this way.  I don't know why I'm 32 years old and still allow friends into my world who don't make it a better place.  

Maybe all of you are reading this and you're thinking I'm absolutely out of my mind.  That you've known this for years and you're out there balancing the best friendships and braiding each other's hair as we speak.  But I'm an OCD, type A, bleeding heart and I have a daily struggle between who to cut from the team and who to get matching tattoos with.  I've been told that for being someone who hates feelings and comes off cold at times - I'm a child with stars in her eyes who refuses to believe anyone is anything but inherently good.

Wake up Silva - life isn't all glitter and rainbows.  People aren't all good.  And they aren't all worth my time, energy, or sparkle.  Being able to break down who I commit my awesome soul to should be as easy as who makes me happy.  I should be able to be selfish with where I direct my attention.  And I should start 32 years ago. 

My takeaway for today is to remember that life and relationships are complicated.  Friendships should be simple.  If someone is not adding positivity to you universe, subtract them.