We had our first book club meeting last night. Five moms, a pitcher of sangria, and a book. I think we spent 20% of our time on the book and the rest just talking and doing our own little striptease.<\/p>\n
Women are such strange creatures. I think we are all horribly scarred in childhood when it comes to girlfriends. Everyone has had that horrible maiming moment in the cafeteria when you stand there, holding your tray of food, desperately scanning the table for someone to sit with. Or when the teacher tells you to pair up and your gaze darts around the room watching everyone else pick their friends while you sit there, rooted to the spot, sure you’ll end up odd girl out and have to pair with the teacher. We’ve all been frozen out by a group of girls, kicked out of the “in” club, been the butt of a private joke, or had our hearts and self-esteem stomped on by the Queen Bee and her nasty worker drones.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I don’t think we ever get over those wounds and we learn to erect walls and cover ourselves in layers and layers of protective clothing. But it’s hot and stiffling wearing our wool sweaters and scarves year round. Every woman is searching for that best friend who will love our streach marked stomach, veiny thighs, dimply butt and all. I can count on one had the number of friends I can go “go neeked” with. My girls that have seen all my horrible thoughts and petty ways and can still laugh and love me.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, none of them live here in Sherwood. And so, this last year, I’ve had to begin that dreaded striptease all over again. You meet someone who you like and slowly, every so slowly, you start to shed the layers. Maybe you try shucking off your our coat, then undo a button or two. The whole process is frightening and tiring and nerve-wracking. Usually, at some point, the process stalles out. It so very rare and precious to find someone you can trust with your whole self without reservation.<\/p>\n
So on our first meeting, we all took off a layer or two and then squirmed around a bit trying to get comfortable with losing a little of our armor. I don’t think any lasting damage was inflicted but we’ll see.<\/p>\n
I keep going back to sitting on a rock in the Sierra Nevadas during my senior year of high school. Our outdoor ed instructor drew a circle in the dirt and told us all this was where we lived. Our comfort zone. Our friends and family and familiar haunts. Then her drew a bigger circle around that little one. He dared us to step outside our comfort zone and expand our circle, add new friends, new places. He kept drawing circles and told us that a life lived to the fullest meant always expanding our comfort zone. I have such a hard time doing that. I love my little dirt ring. I feel so safe and happy. I’m horrible about expanding my realm. But every now and then, I force myself to re-draw my circle.<\/p>\n
And every time I do, it’s well worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We had our first book club meeting last night. Five moms, a pitcher of sangria, and a book. I think we spent 20% of our time on the book and the rest just talking and doing our own little striptease. Women are such strange creatures. I think we are all horribly scarred in childhood when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Kqhb-cv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrissierocks.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}