Now, more so than ever before in my lifetime, I am beyond, blessed with female friendships. In my younger years, the loss of my mother at such a young age made bonding with other women difficult and tenuous at best.
Today, my women friends mean the world to me. My sister-in-law and my nieces, a beautifully renewed and blessedly restored relationship with my step-mother, and the addition of my son’s fiancé and her female family members have all been most welcome injections of estrogen-based love in my life.
I’ve written before about how important these connections are to me, how hard I’ve worked to cultivate these friendships with these amazing, empowered, resilient women and at my husband’s urging no less with those fateful words, “Now, Malia, you’re going to have to make some friends.” So, now. Now, I have these friendships, these bonds, where expression of emotion is valued, where it actually contributes to the health of the relationship. Wow! That has blown my hair back!
And, then, there are the men in my life. For many, many years, I was the rare girl surrounded by a family full of males in various stages of maturity; my dad and his lifelong friends, my uncles on all sides, my brother and all of his friends, my husband, his brothers, my father-in-law, my son and his passel of friends. I fondly call it boy-world, and I am a card-carrying, lifetime member of the boy-mom club.
Before we go any further, I want to make it clear that this is not some sort of treatise on the differences between men and women, if such a thing even exists. I am strictly sharing my experience. Period.
So, let me explain. Living in boy-world and becoming a boy-mom, I found that I had to be a little tougher. My skin had to be a little thicker. Open, emotional expression just didn’t carry weight in that world. Please don’t get me wrong. We certainly had two-way communication where we shared how we felt about subjects, but the men in my life just didn’t commonly use the language of emotion that is so skillfully wielded by the women I know and love. It’s not at all that I couldn’t or wasn’t allowed to be emotionally expressive. It’s just that I found that it wasn’t productive. It didn’t move conversations or situations forward. So, I adapted. I adapted my style of communication, the way I expressed what I was feeling.
Honestly, I used to love it when Paul or our son would complain about me (yes, really!), would shoot each other knowing looks when they were using an extra measure of patience with one of my big ideas, or would lovingly joke about my little eccentricities or quirks. To me, it meant they loved me fully, me and all my imperfections. It was a great comfort for me, a bit of a perfectionist, to know that I didn’t have to be perfect in order for them to fully love me. They got me. They completely accepted me, and took joy in me.
All of this to say, I am so thankful for all of these men in my life, too.
I love that my son now offers me wise counsel. I have sought his input on numerous occasions in the last two years since his father passed away. He never flinches. He never fails to tell it like it is and protect my best interest.
And so, so many other men in my circle of family, friends, neighbors, church family, and colleagues have stepped in and stepped up to help me over and over again. It feels good to seek and receive their assistance and guidance when needed; like when the hot water heater quit working, when the garage door broke, when the dryer vent needed replacing, when a hurricane blew out the porch screens, when I needed advice on how to handle situations. And, then, too, when my emotions were too high, and I needed an objective point of view to help me sort things out, or when I needed protection from others who were trying to take advantage.
I value their honest feedback (you know who you are!), their words of encouragement (you know who you are!!), the challenges they’ve presented me with (yes, you!), and even their gentle correction when my perception was in error or I was just plain wrong (thank you, that would have been a huge mistake!).
I.am.thankful.
I can certainly, absolutely take care of myself. I know that now, but thankfully, I don’t have to. Not all of the time anyway.
Malia
Party of One, or Life after Death 