The Movement Starts Today

lI have been kicking around the idea of this blog for weeks...okay, actually months. It just seemed like everything else was always more important - work, eating, sleeping, cleaning out the junk drawer, posting to FaceBook, blah, blah, blah. I was concerned that my first few posts be perfectly scripted - in all honesty that is what probably delayed my start more than anything. I was overthinking it.

In my mind it was important to be witty. It was important to set the stage perfectly for all future posts. It was important to take time in crafting my message.

Tonight, none of that was important.

What was important tonite, was that my nine year-old daughter walked in the door from the Daddy Daughter Dance sobbing. Not crying - SOBBING!

It wasn't because she had to leave earlier than she wanted. It wasn't because she spilled something on the dress she took so long to pick out. It wasn't because she was just tired and crabby.

My nine year-old daughter, whom we affectionately call Twinkie, was sobbing, because the girl who just a year ago was her best friend, completely ignored her tonight.

"I walked up to talk to her and she just ignored me. I was so happy to see her and she just ignored me. Why?"

It broke my heart.

It broke my heart, because not only was she hurting, but I had to break the news to her that all women over the age of nine know - women are terrible to each other. Yep - we are. You know it, I know it, even her 11 year-old sister knows it.  But, my Twinkie didn't know it.

I wanted desperately to convince her that her friend didn't mean to hurt her feelings or make her feel like an outside - that maybe she just didn't see her. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't lie to her. It was time for the little girl who still loves her Barbies and tucks her Chihuahua in under a pile of blankets every morning before she leaves for school, that today she was going to have to grow up a little and accept the reality that girls can, and will sadly, often be mean to each other. They weren't always going to tell us we look pretty, in fact, sometimes they were going to make us feel ugly. They weren't always going to include us in their fun, in fact, sometimes they were going to exclude us. They weren't always going to lift us up, in fact, sometimes were going to put us down.

It made me down right mad and convinced me that tonight was the night of my first blog.  I had to do something to reach out to the little girls and grown women of the world and get them thinking. Why are we women are so mean to each other?  When it comes to our girlfriends, why cant we be more supportive...More kind...More understanding...More kind...More generous...More accepting...More protective.

Why couldn't we be more Like Laverne and Shirley?