Girls Rule

I know some amazing women.

Women who were second moms to me as I scrambled forward through the years, who came together in a blend with my own mother to offer life lessons, figuratively moving my face ever so slightly to make sure I looked up instead of down.

Women who listen to my dreams, who sit with me over coffee or adult beverages to talk about work and life, who make the right noises when I cry and then laugh moments later, who are happy for me when I'm in love, and get mad with me at the men who have wronged me. (Not all of them wrong me, but it sure seems like a disproportionate number of them have. At least, that's what me and my girls think.)

Women who rescue: who don't say "you'll have to let me know if I can help you" - they just show up and say "give me a job." Women who insist you cannot go through surgery by yourself and fly across states to take care of you, or help you move, or take care of tasks after someone has passed that you thought you could handle alone but ended up in complete, paralyzing overwhelm.

Women I've worked with, and some with whom I still do, who are so remarkably intelligent and meticulous about their work that I trust them implicitly with mine, who make me smarter and more curious just by being around them, who don't stop until they find solutions, who want to make their mark on the world through accomplishments earned with great talent and a good heart.

Women who are closing off a much-loved job with sadness but are less concerned about their own opportunities than they are about finding spots for their suddenly untethered team members. 

Women like my twenty-something niece, who craves adventure and pursues work in that field, knowing already what she wants - something that many of us don't find out until much later.

Women like my sisters, who, even though we may not always see eye to eye, show up in force when there's a crisis; no questions asked. (Well, to be fair - sometimes a few questions are asked, like "How did you let this happen?" or "What were you thinking?")

Women who faced grave illnesses with pragmatism and triumphed, or those with terminal cancer who had such moxie I would sob after I got off of a phone call with them, and even today re-read the emails they sent me, experiencing again their last words, which seem imbued with more gravitas and wisdom now that they are gone.

Yes - on this International Day of Women, when many will stay home from work to make a point (I cannot, because I work there already!), I'm adding my voice to this moment, because I really do think girls rule.

Boys: most of you are okay, too, but this is not your day. Oh - wait... I will represent you through the words of Eagles guitarist Glenn Frey: "Except for a few guitar chords, everything I've learned in my life that is of any value I've learned from women." Amen, Glenn.

© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Except for a few guitar chords, everything I've learned in my life that is of any value I've learned from women.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/glennfrey251756.html

Except for a few guitar chords, everything I've learned in my life that is of any value I've learned from women.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/glennfrey251756.html

Shut Your Eyes and Think of...Anything Else

It's my quarterly "money meeting," and I'm seated in an office with my accountant and my financial planner. I suspect I am a cliché in this practice: a word nerd who hates math. I wonder what percentage of their clientele are made up of people like me; creatives that shine well enough in their respective professions to have resources to protect and invest, but not a clue as to how to make that happen. Thank goodness for all those kids I hated in grade school who aced their math classes. They are saving whole communities of poets and writers and painters from ramen noodles after 60. 

I show up dutifully for these meetings, I write the tax checks required, I listen to reports on how my SEP and my personal accounts are doing, I sit as my female accountant and my male financial planner talk over me and plan my future like parents over a child at dinner. A child who has her index fingers in her ears while saying "lalalalala." 

Sometimes they give me paperwork that needs signing, and I pose a few questions just so they know I’m sharp enough not to let them get away with tricking me into anything (I’m not). When they ask me, as a courtesy, whether I want my money to go in this fund or that one, I furrow my brow and say, “What would you do if you were me?” and then zone out and think about what to get at the grocery store on my way home as they are answering.

Luckily, this works for all of us, and my trusty team of two has done a good job for me over the years. And when I'm feeling particularly unintelligent on my side of the table, or my head starts to hurt from too many numbers, I comfort myself with the knowledge that if they had to write an article or develop a communications strategy, they would be the ones feeling as if their brain was plugged with cotton balls, and they were surely going to fail the test. 
 
© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie