my posse

When I was doing my intake with Dr. Just Breathe, she told me that I was either handling everything very well or that I was in denial.  We both laughed, but it made me think of all the things in my life that are helping me get through this, and it especially made me think of my friends.  So, today I am giving my posse, my own personal girl gang, a shout out.  You’ve heard about them before and you may have read their awesome comments, but you may want to know a bit more about these women who help talk me down off all my ledges.  So, here you go–

Nicole: I met Nicole in 1999 (which, just recently, sounds like a really long time ago), when we both started our PhD programs at UMASS Amherst in the English Department.  I don’t really remember how or where we first started talking, but I remember being really impressed about Nicole’s honesty about her own life, and I remember sending her the Marge Piercy poem ‘For Strong Women’ because I wanted to let her know just how strong I thought she was.  We didn’t know each other very well at that point, and I remember being really nervous about sending her the poem; I wanted her to like me so much.

We had a theory class together, and before long, she and Jeneen and I were all hanging out at my crummy house in the woods of Montague, watching ER every Thursday night.  And then, she was just there.  We decided that we were best friends, and we have been ever since.

Nicole is brilliant.  She writes the most amazing letters–  the kind that you keep and carry around with you until they turn pulpy and become impossible to read.  She will invite you over and will not ever act like it is strange if you want to eat something like corn dogs.  In fact, she will probably have some.    She will send you expensive chocolate and draw you funny pictures and send you packages when things suck.  She’s funny and easy to travel with and maybe best of all, no matter what you are thinking or feeling, she understands– she makes you feel utterly and absolutely normal.  She reminds me that I am not the only one, and there are not many gifts we can give each other that are greater than that.

One night, many years ago, I called her crying in the midst of some love drama and she came to get me in her car and just drove me around aimlessly while we talked.  When I called to tell her that Suzanne had left, she just said, “I’m coming over.”  I didn’t even have to ask.

When she moved away (first to California and then to Chicago), I felt like my heart was breaking.  I got us ‘best friend’ bracelets and told myself that there were planes, that there was email.  And this distance has not made us grow further apart, but I still look forward to the day when we can live in the same place and eat good food and talk shit about people all the time. 

Nothing I could say could really tell you enough about her.  Watching her marriage has helped me imagine my own, even when that possibility seemed furthest away; watching her survive her miscarriages has helped to remind me that there is a way out of this particular darkness.  When I have felt unable to hold any hope for myself, she has held it for me.

Jeneen: I met Jeneen in my first year of grad. school at UMASS.  She and Nicole and I were the only three people admitted to our program that year, and we became our own little gang, passing notes in our classes, reading each other’s papers, and discussing Foucault and Barthes over dinner at Judy’s.  

Jeneen and I both had boyfriends when we came to grad. school (hers was a fundamentalist, mine was just really mean), and we spent lots of time together talking about love and relationships and what we had and what we wanted.  All those talks helped me to figure out exactly where I was and where I wanted to be.

Jeneen is really funny.  She laughs at my stories and even goes along with my practice of making elaborate charts to help with life decisions.  We have spent many nights with a bottle of wine, some markers, and a big life decision.  When she moved away, I gave her markers and a whole stack of colored paper in case she needed to make any big life decisions without me.

We holed up together one summer in the carrels of the UMASS Library (on the 13th floor) to study for our doctoral exams.  She made a funny sign for my carrel and we spent just as much time walking across the floor to harass each other as we did studying.  We talked each other through various relationships and all the feelings we had about finally dropping out of our doctoral programs to explore life outside of academia.   

In my worst times, Jeneen drove from Boston to Western Mass. on many nights just to sit in my kitchen and talk to me.  She never once mentioned or complained about the fact that this was a two hour drive (each way).  She always comes to my birthday parties and she even came with me on the fateful night of Natalie Merchant and the underwear.  And instead of being pissed about the fact that she had to sit next to crazy people, be mis-identified as a lesbian, listen to very bad spoken word poetry, and hold on to her sanity through a three hour concert (at the end of which she did not even get to see very much of the promised Natalie Merchant), she just laughed with me about it as we braved the streets of Dorchester to get back to our cars.  She looks good in plether pants, but she is so nice that you will not even hate her for it.

I am of the opinion that there are very few people in this world with good, good hearts.  Some of us may feel that we’re close, on some days, but very few of us are simply open and generous and good to our very core.  Jeneen is– and I have always greatly admired that about her.  If there is a heaven, she will definitely get in (and hopefully get the rest of us in as well).

Christine: I also met Christine in grad. school (where the nerdy can meet their ilk).  I had seen her around, but we only got to know each other when I invited her over for dinner after hearing that she was going through a pretty bad break up.  She ended up coming over for a lot of dinners and eventually becoming my housemate.  She was the first person I called after I found out that Suzanne was cheating on me, and I asked her to meet us at the house.  I just needed someone to be there, to stand witness to the dissolution.  She was there through that horrible day and all of the days after that.  She bought me Coke in a can and Ben and Jerry’s and sat with me while I cried and cried and cried.  She also made me go running and clean the floors and get up and go to work every day.  She is the only person who was with me, day in and day out, during the worst time in my life.

Christine is one of those people who would rather go running when she is upset than eat ice cream and watch reality television.  She will, however, understand if you don’t exactly feel the same.  She will talk to you, make you food, and make you feel better about whatever is happening in your life.  She and Aileen are the ones who encouraged me to go on a date with Renee, and they were the people I called the next day to report that it had gone well.

She and Aileen called to wish me luck just before the bad ultrasound, and they were just about the first people we called afterwards.  They called and sent lots of text messages and Christine even offered to take off work to come with me for the D&E (which is how you know you have a really good friend– when they offer to come to traumatic, invasive medical procedures with you).

Aileen: I can’t talk about Christine without talking about her wife, Aileen (Renee calls them “the wives”).  I will admit that I was heinously bitchy to Aileen initially (really because of my own baggage), but much to her credit, she let it go and never once tried to fight me (even though she is very tall and might have won).  One day I offered to draw a funny picture of her, and I think we both knew the ice was starting to melt.  For the record, she has never tried to pay me back for my initial ill will (that I know of) by doing anything mean to me.  This is kind and noble of her. 

Aileen is very crafty and can sew many things.  She will also “help” you sew (and do all the hard parts for you) if you ask her.  She will then pretend that she did not help you and claim that you did it all yourself.  This may be the best thing of all.

She can make brownies without a recipe or a brownie mix, write novels, and she loves beautiful things as much as I do.  What I love most about Aileen is how much she has loved Christine, and even me, even when I did not deserve it.  She gave me the greatest gift last July when she allowed me to be there for their son, Adam’s, birth.  I was in awe of her that day; she was focused and beautiful and stripped down to her most essential self, and since then I will admit to being a bit protective of her.  She left me a really wonderful phone message after the miscarriage that I saved for a long time and listened to again and again.

Claire: I met Claire in college.  At some point, we both worked for the campus radio station and we were also both RAs.  She was very cool and had both a jean jacket and a Mr. Bubble t-shirt that I coveted.  But alas, she was always with her boyfriend.  Somehow we did manage to both become friends and survive our undergrad years.

She is hilarious.  She is also a great artist and is very crafty (it seems as though I simply love crafty people).  In college, we had an angsty zine called Jagged Edge.  You will never see this zine posted on this blog, but if you become best, best friends with me and I am drunk, I may let you see the copies that I have at home.  Sadly, it folded after only two issues.

Claire was the first of my friends to get married.  I was in her wedding and I agreed to wear a dress that had a train, a bow, and lace.  Since I was in quite a baby butch phase (before I embraced my inner and outer femme), this was no small ask.  I also had a shaved head at the time.  I remember Claire asking me to put some lipstick on before we all waked down the aisle.  “Do you really think it will help?” I asked.  I ended up wearing the lipstick.

She was also the first of my friends to have a baby (and then two more), and I greatly appreciate her from-the-trenches observations about parenting.  She does not lie or try to tell too many ‘circle of life’ stories.  She lives too far away, but has taken my little sister (who moved to her city) under her wing, and I always almost pee myself laughing when we talk.  She’s been with me through a lot, and I hope someday she sees the error of her ways and moves back up here!

Susan: I met Susan my freshman year of college.  She had the room two doors down from mine, although if there was any sense in the roommate-assigning process, she would have been my roommate (instead of my actual roommate, Malibu Barbie).  There is not enough room on the entire Internet to describe all of the shenanigans that Susan and I engaged in that year.  We once acquired a great number of prom dresses and hung them in the community bathroom.  We also acquired and hung a huge, light up Santa head on the side of our building.  Why?  Because we could.

We went to Perkins in the middle of the night and harassed our fellow dorm-mates during the millions of middle-of-the-night fire drills we had to endure.  Susan always had both stickers and change for the soda machine in her room, and she even made a pair of overalls for my beloved sock monkey out of her roommate’s pillowcase (she is just that crafty).

Susan left Nazareth College (Nazcatraz) the next year for another school, and for a while we did not talk all that much.  But we came around to each other again, and began sending each other many, many cards and packages full of funny things that neither of us really needed.  We don’t see each other that often and we don’t even talk on the phone that much, but I consider her one of my closest friends.  We email a lot and she now has a blog, catharsis. 

She is so honest about what she sees and what she feels, and she has a knack for phrasing things in just the right way– the way that can make you feel hopeful even in the midst of hopelessness, and her ability to dig into herself to make sense of where she has come from and what she wants for the future amaze me.  We think the same things are funny; we hate lots of the same people.  If I were ever in a street fight or a brain bowl (or a crafting throw down), I would definitely want her on my side.  And that giant Santa head?  It now hangs outside of Susan’s very own house at Christmas.

Laura: Laura is the newest member of my girl posse.  She has been friends with Renee for a long time (they met at Mt. Holyoke), but only came into my life a few years ago.  Laura is uber crafty and super stylish.  Everything about her is cool (so, of course, she lives in NYC and does something cool that I don’t completely understand for work.  What I do understand is that this work has to do with things like buying buildings and travelling around, so I know enough to know that it is cool).  I think Laura may have, at one time, thought that I did not like her, but really I was just afraid that I was not cool enough to be her friend.  Since then, I have stopped caring about whether I am indeed cool enough to be her friend (probably not), because it appears that she is overlooking my inherent uncoolness and allowing us to be friends anyway.

Laura will tell you the truth about both pregnancy and birth and will not use any euphemisms or wilderness metaphors to talk about the process (which is more valuable and more rare than you might think).  She will not try to tell you that giving birth did not hurt or that she “can’t remember” the pain.  She has the most beautiful baby, but she still manages to be cool and even, recently, made a craft project every single day for a month.  I think she actually owns a silk screen.  This year, she made her own valentines and mine was a pop-up valentine.  That she MADE!  She agreed to make one of these projects a do-it-yourself fertility shrine for me (just because I asked).  It came in the mail, wrapped carefully in bright yellow tissue paper, and I can’t wait to put it all together.  She sent me lots of great little emails after the miscarriage, just to check in.  I am looking forward to getting together with her sometime for a crafting extravaganza. 

You can check her out at Lady Lu’s Braindump and Craftorium.  But be warned: her site will make you feel both inspired and like a total creative slacker.

This is not everyone, but it is just a very small thank you to the members of my girl gang inner circle who have been muddling through this with us, celebrating with us, mourning with us, waiting with us, and hoping with us too.  None of these things should be done in isolation.  And if this loss has stripped me down to the bone on some days, it has also reminded me, again, of who my friends are and of how much I truly need the whole motley crew of them in my life.

I also have to give a shout out to my online posse, those of you who read and send me great comments– sometimes I imagine us all haging out together, eating and laughing and talking shit.  I love your comments and your blogs; I talk about you and your trials and triumphs with Renee.  I think about you as I move through my days.  There is no small amount of comfort in imagining us all in this together.