why mothers need girlfriends

Amy and I recently spent our lunch break shoe-hunting together, and in between admiring five-inch-heels, we exchanged notes on our lives.

I have two kids, two dogs, and a cat.  I have a job that lets me afford a tiny house, private schools for my children, car repairs, and cat food.  I love shoes, books, and cats, though not necessarily in that order.  I spend my weekends inside the house, battling clutter, making failed attempts at cooking, drawing cockroaches for my four-year-old.

Amy is a single mother.  Her son does not live with her.  She chose to be alone.  What I find refreshing about her, in the light of my own crowded family life, is the thought of running the show on her own.  I think it would be restful to sometimes not think too much about the man of the house, the obligations of the wife, the children's upbringing, the faces we show the public that say we are what society deems successful women should be.  I envy Amy for the guiltless weekend she could spend in the beach with her friends.  I bet Amy could put a dining table in her bedroom for crafts and little projects, something I wanted but couldn't do in the shared territory of our own master's bedroom.  Amy could buy shoes without equating them with cans of preschool milk powder.   


But I don't know Amy's journey, and the choices she made to be what she is now.  What I know is that we are both grown women, in different circumstances, working to raise children and have interesting lives at the same time.  And I know that sometimes it gets tiring.

When mothers get fed up, or just plain tired, they do strange things.  Some moms go out and get a horrible perm that makes them look like seaweed.  Some take weekend trips with just their friends.  Some raid bookstores.  Some go on shoe-hunting expeditions.  Each of us has her own way of feeling good about herself.  And we deserve it, because you never know how hard we try to be a good wife and mother, not to mention dishwasher, bathroom cleaner, nurse, errand girl, playground defender, and a host of other things we are forced to do, like hunt around inside the garbage bin for Barbie's missing f**king shoe.    

You see, mothers are forever holding their breaths for small crises, real or imagined, that may threaten their own little world.  We’re forever waiting for scraped knees to soothe, algebra equations to solve, missing socks to find, quarrels to pacify, gossip to spread, promotions that never come, magical sex, so that we can put on our costume and try to be Wonder Woman.

Most of the time, we succeed.  But we are human.  So when we get mad, or when we walk out, or when we break plates, that’s us, exhaling.  When we sing like crazy, when we get drunk, when we try something that you say isn’t age-appropriate like pole-dancing or blue mascara, that’s also us, exhaling.  And the best way to do it is with our own friends, other women with whom we can lay our souls bare and just be whatever we are at that particular time.  Not Wonder Woman; just a woman.

So this is for all my girlfriends out there: for Irene and Milette, for Sharon, Joy, and Trixie, for another Joy, for Carol, for Almira.  When they share in my joys, I am doubly happy.  When they cry with me, the load gets lighter.  Yes, we do discuss the impact of Victoria's Secret lingerie on our sex life, but we also discuss the merits of home-schooling, positive reinforcement, and helicopter parenting.  We giggle a lot, we pig out, we get outrageous.  And we come out of it fortified, reassured of our own worth, ready to be Wonder Woman for our family again.

Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry
Life never tells us, the whens or why
When you’ve got friends to wish you well
You’ll find your point when you will exhale

Exhale, by Whitney Houston   

channeling the inner geisha

Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha is once again on my bedside, for night reading.  There's a part where the young Chiyo watches the beautiful geisha Hatsumomo dress for the day.  Hatsumomo was one of the most extraordinary geisha in Gion.

Chiyo says:

Because, you see, when a geisha wakes up in the morning she is just like any other woman. Her face may be greasy from sleep, and her breath unpleasant. It may be true that she wears a startling hairstyle even as she struggles to open her eyes; but in every other respect she’s a woman like any other, and not a geisha at all. Only when she sits before her mirror to apply her makeup with care does she become a geisha. And I don’t mean that this is when she begins to look like one. This is when she begins to think like one too.

  And I was thinking, Ooh, how wonderful it must be to wake up an ordinary woman, and prepare yourself for the day like a geisha.  You have approximately two hours to be sad, grumpy, problematic, ugly, thoroughly human.  But by the time you step out of the house, you are a geisha: beautiful, powerful, and in control of her world.

So, to test this theory, I set the alarm early and got up half an hour later.  I was already grumpy.  I dawdled over coffee and worried about the things that mothers usually worry about: bills, kids, running out of potatoes, and oh, let's not forget the mushroom that grew out of the kitchen wall as a result of the two-week monsoon rains.  Problematic, check.

It has slipped my mind that it's a holiday for the rest of the country, while I have work.  Which means I have to commute.  And in the jeep ride from Bacoor to Baclaran, my hair went crazy.  Ugly?  You bet.  I am not used to commuting.  I got to the MRT station and promptly queued at the wrong window; it was for senior citizens.  Shit.  By this time my inner geisha is rolling on the floor, laughing.

The train ride to the office took 15 minutes, and I congratulated myself with another cup of coffee.  Since it was still early, I peeked in Facebook for updates.  Secretary Robredo, who disappeared in a plane crash off the sea in Masbate last Saturday, has been found.  He was still in the plane, 180 feet down.  Now I'm grieving for a good politician now dead.  Then I started attacking the 55 emails in my inbox.  There is a panel interview at eleven, and a meeting at three.  I have to call Nissan to find out if the van, brought in for repairs a week ago, is ready for release.  I have to set a reminder on my phone to check if my daughter's Scouting uniform is ready.  I have to buy breakfast cereal and milk on my lunch break.  I have to dampen my curls with a little water to see if they will behave.  I am already worrying about the jeep ride home at the end of the day.  Good thing I'm wearing three-inch heels, not five.  Human.  Thoroughly human.  The geisha is choking on laughter and I'd like to wring her neck.

Then the geisha sits up, smoothens her hair, and raises her perfect eyebrows.  Listen, she says, you've got it wrong.  Even with hair like a bird's nest, you are lovely.  Of course it matters if you look good, but it's more important to feel good about who you are.  And all those things that make you human?  To quote One Direction: that's what makes you beautiful.  At the end of the day, everything on your to-do list will be done, delegated to the husband, put off for another day, settled.  A woman is powerful that way.

Relax.  Take a deep breath.  You are in control of your own little world.  Put on some bright red lipstick and face your day with a smile and your claws out.

Wait.  When did the geisha become a cat?!