Every Day is Women's Day - or something equally cliched and powerful.

Today is International Women's Day.

I guess that's a thing?

Google told me that this actually originated back in the early 1900s as part of a socialist working women's movement...the world's history is so interesting.

I've pondered this greatly today.  The idea of celebrating women in a more than Galentine's Day fashion. This concept resonates loudly with my soul in so many ways - there is a book brewing in there somewhere about it.

I've always disliked the general idea of bra-burning, man-hating feminism.  It makes my skin crawl.  I despise the empowerment of one group putting down anyone else.  That's ridiculous.  A rising tide lifts all boats, as the saying goes.  And I believe that.

Let's do this together.

And we do in many ways.  We all create our own villages that we travel through life with.

As women, we create varying layers of friendship with other women.  Lifelong friendships, happy acquaintances, carpool buddies or co-workers who share that special work-love.  The connections are all different and they are all important in their own ways.

The thought that has really stuck with me today is that so often those strong relationships we create with other women become our life-force.  Our source of strength and sustenance.  And when they become sources of strife (which, as humans, they invariably will) we can feel set adrift without an anchor.

When female friendships are strong we use them to accomplish a myriad of tasks -

• a sounding board for life changes 
• fashion advice with pictures snapped in dressing room mirrors
• a compass to guide our rationale
• someone to tell us the things we cannot tell ourselves

And that last one is so important - for both positive and constructive feedback. 

But what do we do when there is a break in the communique? 

As humans, we will screw up.  We will say the wrong thing, our imperfections will surface, we will forget The Important Thing, we will fail to listen, we will gossip, the timing will be off, The Bad Thing will happen.  It will.  

Now we are adrift.  The external moral compass is gone, no one can hear our voice, and we are going to buy the wrong pants to go with that cute shirt.  

We feel lost. 

Let's be honest, maintaining any sort of relationship is difficult.  DIFFICULT.  Think about all the time and effort and care-taking that must be done to properly tend to your house plants.  It's so CONSISTENT.  And relationships require more than that! 

And life happens and we are BUSY and someone has to decide What Is For Dinner. 

So we've fractured something that previously sustained us and there is so much sadness and remorse and even a little anger. We miss our PEOPLE. 

I think that we all have this box that lives inside of us and it is labeled The Truth.  And it is ours and we OWN IT. 

But we do not Tell It. We do not share the contents of the box unless it is a small piece and then only carefully because IT IS SACRED.  And if someone knew of all the contents of The Box they might JUDGE US.  And we think that because WE JUDGE OURSELVES. 

But I would also propose that it is the contents of those boxes that truly unite us. That when we share the deepest parts of ourselves in safe spaces with good people and truly LISTEN and HEAR one another, we grow together. 

We grow together. 

The last piece of my theory is that all this disconnection and loss of relationship is severely hindered by the lack of safe spaces.  There are plenty of good people and lots of good intentions but it is very hard to create a truly safe space to take the lid of that Box of Truth and unveil those sacred tenants. 

Developing that kind of space involves a lot of Grace and Understanding and Listening and allowing no judgement to enter.  We must truly open ourselves up to the possibility of someone else's Truth and just ACCEPT.  

And I'll be damned if that isn't about the hardest thing there is.  

This isn't just accepting that your friend insists on wearing hot pink Keds with every outfit and being okay with their "fashion forward" thinking.  This is accepting WHO A PERSON IS - which is the thing we all want to desperately and yet feel we are not worthy of.  And so we place that insecurity into every situation we encounter.  

But it's not about you.  

And it shouldn't be.  

I say these things not because I'm enlightened but because I've royally fucked up sometimes and I'm attempting to learn from my mistakes.  And because somewhere in my Box of Truth, there is a secretary who works for Hallmark.  It just comes out that way. Utopia. Peace and Love.  You get the idea.

I looked back recently at a blog post I shared in early January regarding my own battle with infertility.  This was a serious piece from my innermost core.  One I can barely even speak of to myself.  

And what happened when I shared that was a COMMUNITY of amazing women spoke up and said WE SEE YOU and YOU ARE LOVED.  

I really needed that.  

But no less than you do.  

And we all deserve that.  

We deserve to exist in a universe that is devoid of sideways glances, raised and judgey eyebrows, and the constant competition.  

We can create a safe space for each other.  And we can live there.