One of my favorite things about the holiday season and everyone having time off is watching girls get together with their core groups to make core memories. You know, the college besties with their Dyson Air Wrapped hair and Aritzia puffers, who plan bridal showers and booze cruises and long weekends in random ass cities, like Scottsdale. It’s beautiful! I love it so much! I’m lying through my teeth!
I’ve tasted that sweet girl gang nectar throughout my life. From as early as my first cheerleading squad to just like, two years ago, I’ve had friend groups who’ve felt like family. I’d blink and have 87 unread texts in the group chat, half of them being “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.” We had birthday parties, Christmas parties, just-because-we-love-each-other-and-need-to-be-together parties. 5 AM blunt rotations on balconies with perfect skyline views, where everything felt hilarious and singular. Girls’ nights. Girls’ trips. Girls, girls, girls.
When Ariana Grande cheated on her husband over the summer with her Wicked co-star, Ethan Slater, his now ex-wife Lilly Jay described Grande as “not a girls’ girl.” I was in Charleston for a bachelorette at the time, and, 9 AM White Claws in hand, we dissected that jab for a good hour. Maybe it was the inherent slumber partyness of a bachelorette, but the solidarity around being a girls’ girl warmed my heart. Temporary tattoos of the bride’s face glittered from our clavicles and the $400 balloon arch drooped like an old basset hound and I could have spent the rest of my life in that room, on that trip. (which says a lot considering I caught a terrible case of COVID… and the bride was pregnant)
Those are the moments, puke and rally notwithstanding, that remind me how much I miss being part of a girl gang. Adulthood wrings girl gangs of our lifeblood. We’re tired. Our schedules blow. We live $600 flights away from each other. We simply don’t have what it takes to thrive in this fast-paced environment of platonic upkeep. Our lives narrow into our immediate environments and obligations—our families, our cities, our jobs, our apartments, our partners, our workout routines, our laundry, our dogs, our friends whose wedding celebrations take up all our time. Before you know it, you realize you don’t laugh like you used to. And all I want to do is laugh. Ever.
It’s not like I’m hurting for good women in my life. Rachel still has us over for dinner; we sit cross-legged on her couch, ranting in fuzzy socks. I just had an insane weekend in Brooklyn with some beauties; I’d forgotten the healing power of a bottomless brunch that lasts so long, it’s dark out when you leave. I got to see Katie and her new baby. The list goes onnnnnn and on and on, because such is the good fortune of being a girls’ girl.
But it all exists in isolation. I’m not part of a group anymore. A few of my girlfriends wanted me to have a bachelorette, and I politely declined. Can you IMAGINE the havoc it’d wreak on my hypersensitivity if no one showed? I’d be inconsolable for months! I would mope around my house unshowered, writing terrible poetry, eating boxed mac & cheese… and I already do that enough without any real catalyst.
I think back to when that steady seven or so of us used to crush life together. We weren’t pondering the universe, or art, or even current events. We were bullshitting over cheap beer, telling the same small town stories over and over because we knew, in our bones, that the real story was the one unfolding before us. Now, when we do something like, once a year, I think to myself, “enjoy this while it lasts.” I can’t enjoy anything while it lasts because nothing lasts forever; my tastebuds reject the impermanence. But I get by. Everyone loses their Elfbars and nobody has cash for the cover and still, by god, I get by.
Don’t bother hitting me with some banal, “Social media makes you feel like you need a girl gang! Log off and enjoy the friends you have!” shit. I mean, I practically fed it to you in the intro, painting myself childish and embittered toward all the Carly/Sarah/Amber/Lexi/Kristens of the world cheersing espresso martinis on Thanksgiving Eve. Yeah, it can make you feel lonely. And yeah, it can give you FOMO. But maybe there’s goodness to reinforcing the friendship ideal. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to crave enduring group connection, to honor the little rhinestone cowgirl in your brain that giddyups at the chance to get the band back together.
Can I get a yeehaw in the chat?
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My two girlies (one of whom is my cousin lol) and I send each other plots of land to keep the dream of our #girlcompound alive. One day, we WILL all live in fairy cottages sprawled across 40 acres of farm land 🤞🏼
This is how I feel with the homies. It feels like this sweet treat to have at least most of us together because it doesn’t happen often, and it can’t be forever. As always, thank you for writing ❤️ (P.S. yeehaw 🤠)