The Gift of Women...Part Two.

Man, have I been partying lately!  I just wrapped up my third party in 4 days!  Who am I?  It has been great fun, so much fun, I slept until 7 am this morning!  For this prior 4 am getter upper for decades, that is L A T E!

But Sunday night I attended a “Dust It Off” event at a friend’s home in North Hollywood.  The idea was to take something from your closet that you have nowhere to wear it, dust it off and wear it to the party!  I mean, how American is that?  Have a closet so full of clothes that we have shit in there we don’t even have a place to wear it???

Anyway, being a good American, I, of course, had something to pull out, dust off and wear to the party.  Mine was a vintage 1980s Gunnysack Prom Dress.  No, I didn’t wear it to the prom back then, I bought it for a New Year’s Eve party a few years back that I was not able to attend.  So this party provided the perfect opportunity.  I took full advantage and created a Madonna, Desperately Seeking Susan vibe.  I looked ridiculous but it was fun!

I was able to take a friend so my bestie came along.  She had the best dress ever!  She was supposed to get married once upon a time, but didn’t and had a gorgeous wedding dress that she never got to wear!  She looked beautiful and stole the whole show!  

We had so much fun on the drive down, stopped at LaLa Land Coffee on a Sunday afternoon and walked in like we just walked off a movie set. Her looking like a Runaway Bride and me looking like a Madonna impersonator wedding singer.  So funny!  People gawked and stared but all eyes were on my friend because she just looked stunning!  She may have never walked the aisle back in the day but damn she rocked the hell outta that dress 25 years later!  And it still fit with perfection! How many people can say that?  Pretty fucking cool.

The party was amazing!  Great food, AMAZING desserts, and stellar women.  So lovely to bring a group of women together, many of whom have never met, and create a fun, engaged and supportive vibe! Not an easy feat!

I am so happy to have been included.  I am so lucky to have so many wonderful women in my life.  And it is an ever expanding circle.  Once upon a time, women represented an opportunity for constant and unremitting comparison.  A yardstick that I measured myself against and always came up short.  Until one day, I had a spiritual experience a long time ago at a women’s meeting.  At the end of the meeting where we all held hands and said the serenity prayer, I looked around the room and started to do what I always did:  compare and despair.  But this time, as I began to think stupid shit like, “she is prettier, she is thinner, she is richer...” I stopped mid comparison and I realized that we were all women.  We all wanted to feel good in our skins, to be sober, to have enough money to live a good and useful life.  We all had our problems and we all struggled with self esteem.  We all just wanted to live sober and experience love and joy and fellowship. And the ladder I lived upon crumbled.  I saw that we were just all the same, wanting the same things, we just had different outsides but on the inside we all wanted and needed the same things.

I won’t claim that I have never compared and despaired again, but for the most part, I don't engage in that anymore.  I no longer hold myself to the standards and unrealistic ideal of others.  My job is to be the best Erin I can be.  To develop, hone, foster and grow my own inner and outer beauty. I am not supposed to be like Susan or Karen or Beth.  I am supposed to be me.  That is all.  And I can see now that all that time I spent thinking I should be more like, whoever, was just time I wasted on an unattainable goal.  God just wants me to be me. And to love her, honor her and respect her.

Women’s gatherings got a lot more fun and enjoyable when I could show up and just be me and stop feeling so less than all the time.  Women were never the problem, it was my own self esteem and worth issues that always caused me to feel like an outsider looking in.  I belong if I allow myself to belong.

Sunday night it was so good to be a woman among women.  I loved celebrating the unique and wonderful qualities of each of the women in attendance.  Such a good time and so much love, honesty and support!  

And I would have missed it if I hadn’t gotten sober and dealt with my issues with women.  It is amazing how much less a threat women are when you yourself aren’t acting like a shitty friend and woman.  

So once more I learned it was never them, always me.  Me and all my baggage.  And Sunday night I was so grateful to be in a room full of smart, amazing, beautiful women who were there in support of each other, to laugh, to learn, to support and to love each other.

I might have missed it.  I am so glad that I did the work on me so that I could enjoy and relish them.  Women are amazing, wonderful creatures and I am so grateful that I finally took my seat at that table and just became one of the girls.

And I am so grateful I got to spend the time with a new group of amazing women...

Again, still...