girliness lost

i don't know what it is about me these last few days, but i've been emotional, sentimental, nostalgic. thinking deep thoughts about so many things, past and present. for example, i've been lamenting the fact that i grew up with no sisters. no girlie influence at all.

having four brothers, all the tv i watched was that which appealed to males. shows like "the incredible hulk," "a-team," westerns. i don't even know the names of any shows with a female audience from that time period.

playing with dolls? i had some barbies, but my brothers' g.i. joes usually blew them up. or they buried them in the yard. or hung their severed heads by their hair from the clothesline. i did get a holly hobby bicycle for my birthday one year, but by the end of summer, she'd been disassembled for parts for various violent experimental machines.

polishing nails, playing dress-up, putting on make-up? huh-uh. nope. i didn't even feel like i was "allowed" to dream of prince charming and a fairytale wedding. i would have been laughed at for sure. and no girl-emotions, either. no crying, no female drama.

when added to our frequent moves, this equals a serious retardation of the ability to make girlfriends. not the desire; just the ability.

i made my first girlfriend in seventh grade. she moved away. and so, coincidentally, did we. i missed most of the eighth grade due to illness, but the summer before ninth grade, i really "blossomed," as they say - got boobs and hips and had great hair and learned how to use make-up to my advantage.

i became friends with the sister of one of the boys who liked me. butch and beverly (and bev's boyfriend) and i were inseparable. such intense but innocent good times. then . . . we moved away. (note: bev and i now live about an hour apart and we see each other every year or so, although we email back and forth frequently.)

i can't remember exactly how i met angela, but we became bff's. we had a lot in common, but were different enough to be interesting to each other. our friendship cooled a bit when we both moved twice more before graduation. but we went to the same college and jumped right back into our friendship. then, toward the end of our sophomore year, something happened. a gradual distancing at first and then someone told me she'd said horrible things about me. i never asked her if it was true. but i think about angela often. i wonder what happened back in college. i wonder how her life turned out. if she's happy.

fast forward to today. my cousin vicki and i've been best friends since we've lived in the same town since 1992. i made two very good girlfriends after hiring them, debbie at one company and susan at the next. then i became friends with susan's sister sharon. susan and sharon remain good friends and may be the first women, other than vicki, who i've felt i could confide my truths to.

what's the point of all this? i don't . . . know. i think there may be no point at all. but if there were a point, it would be that tomorrow is my very first ever pedicure appointment. tim gave me a gift certificate two birthdays ago and i'm finally using it, due in part (maybe wholly due) to my recent yearning for the girliness i should have had growing up. and i am so incredibly nervous about it. dumb, but true.