A Love Letter to My Girlfriends
"We need to remember what's important in life: friends, waffles, work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn't matter, but work is third.” -- Leslie KnopeI’m snarky. Big surprise. I have very little love for Valentine’s Day. Big surprise. In my opinion, it is a no-win, pseudo-holiday. You are either celebrating a Hallmark holiday devoted to false illusions of a perfect relationship or you’re involved in a hollow response to it.As a fiery young co-ed, I was so anti-Valentine’s I auditioned and was cast for a role in the Vagina Monologues. I was naïvely convinced that Eve Ensler’s V-day would take the place of that dreaded, saccharine day. Although a good cause, spotlighting violence against women does not a second pseudo-holiday make. Enter the plucky, fictional women, Leslie Knope from Parks & Recreation to spark the movement I was looking for:
“Every February 13, my ladyfriends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus frittatas.”
This concept pushed directly back against its counterpart, the romance-happy Hallmark holiday, by emulating it and women were captivated.
Do not confuse the popularity of Galentine’s Day as a need to take emotional refuge from couplehood. Do not assume that your #girlsquad is runner-up or alternative to a romantic relationship. The writer Emily Rapp argued that “friendships between women are often the deepest and most profound love stories, but they are often discussed as if they are ancillary, ‘bonus’ relationships to the truly important ones.”Galentine’s Day recognizes that female friendships are a romance unto themselves.
The love we have for our friends is legitimate; love full of passion, joy, loss, comfort, and occasionally, heartbreak. The women in my life have borne witness to my triumphs and failures with every bit the complication and nuance of any romantic relationship. My friends have defined my path from girlhood to adulthood (still a work in progress). After all, as Deborah Tannen puts in her book You’re the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women’s Friendships, “Having a friend means feeling less alone in the world.”
So in the spirit of this Galentine’s Day, I send out thanks to my girlfriends for all the amazingness they bring to my life. I have needed them more intensely than they have needed me, and I am grateful.