My Favorite Girls

I was skimming through Yahoo! earlier when I found from the fluffy section with stuff on love, life, and how to lose weight, this article on what they call, essential friendships. Not the best place to get life advise from a site called Shine! at Yahoo where the fonts are fluffy and Shine is written in pretty purple ink. Surprisingly, behind all that fluff is a lot of sense.

You can never go wrong with awesome women :)

Photo Credit: "8 Friends Every Woman Needs"
http://www.prevention.com/8friendseverywomanneeds/index.shtml

The article is called "8 Friends Every Woman Needs". And while you have every right to doubt the credibility of this article as the title reeks of  cheesy self-help, surprise surprise, it actually is a sensible piece of life advise. In all fairness, this is some pretty valuable insight hiding behind that fluffy purple font. And I can't believe how many times I used the word "fluffy" already, I guess I got the point across. Haha. You can never have enough strong women of substance in your life. This is me sending out love and happy thoughts to my favorite women.

I'm writing the list here as a reminder to me of the women I hold dear, as a piece of shared internet shiz to you, and as a token of gratitude for the women in my life who do make my life better and more meaningful :) Just when you thought the cheese would be conveniently brought to you by that website called Shine, I pull a fast one on you and lovingly bring you gooey, mushy love on an easy Friday night :p

With Tin and Lai in Bed in our first Glee reunion :)

(I realize now this isn't exactly my most flattering picture as
I am now already as red as my cardigan, and patch-y at that)

Childhood Friend
I'd count Tin and Lai for this one. I've known both of them since I was 6, so counting that back means we've been friends a good 17 years already. It's true old friends keep you grounded cos they know you were from back when you had no idea what 'pretenses' meant. I'm happy we still are in each other's lives and I earnestly hope we remain friends until we are very very old.

New friend
Like I said before, the best takeaway from my previous retreat would have to be my sharegroupmates. I am happy to add Giddi and Mavic to the circle of awesome women in my life.

Workout friend
I'd pick Blanche for my workout friend. Although really, we are more of TV/movie/same kind of quirky kind of friends. But yeah, since we met at the gym and that we actually work out together, I'll put her under "workout friend".

It's true that it really does help a lot to have someone to work out with. You have someone you can geek out about how many gym classes you can do back to back, someone to discuss how your left jab looks weird, and someone to push you on your lazy days.

It helps too that you have someone to bitch about when you eat one too many tubs of ice cream. Plus, you see each other at least once a week so keeping in touch is never a problem.

Post-run dinner with Neng at Flaming Wings Katip

Spiritual friend
I just knew I'd put Neng for my spiritual friend. I love picking her brain about pretty much anything, getting her opinion on my questions about my faith, and telling her my stories with full confidence of non-judgment. I have so much love for this woman. I miss her actually.

Younger friend
This will be the missing piece in my Little Women circle. I don't think I have this younger friend yet. Now that I think about it, I love hanging out with older people. Maybe because I'm an only child. But I think it'll be healthy if I find someone younger than me to share with, and hopefully to mentor. Maybe when am a bit older, and I have wisdom to share :)

Your partner's friends
Yeah, I think I'd have to get a partner first. Haha. When the time comes, I kind of am scared of meeting my boyfriend's girl friends. They can be protective and catty, I know because I've been there. But I think the moment you both realize you only look after that one boy's happiness, things turn around and you're in for a group of women you'd be lucky to have on your side. I look forward to this new set of girl friends in the future :)

Christmas 2009 in Baguio

Your mom
I think I'm not alone in saying that mom-daughter relationships are always never uncomplicated. My Mum and I share our own brand of crazy which is sometimes amusing and well, sometimes not amusing. I know I drive her nuts the same way she does me, but I don't know of any other woman I can love with the same passion as I love her :)


Yourself
Now this one will have to be the most um, complicated of all the 8 relationships. I still am a work in progress and everyday is a new discovery. It's always about finding new ways to love me paranoia, self-criticism and all. Haha.

I can't believe how much more I love these women after writing about them :)