Happy Galentine’s day, friends! Galentines day is a modernization of an ancient womanhood ritual. Many don’t know this, but Gal Godot (the reboot Wonder Woman in the DCU) was named after this amazing festival of women’s power. No she wasn’t. I’m totally making this up. Ha. I slay me.

Galentine’s day is a completely-made-up opportunity for women to celebrate their relationships with their friends. A day for women to celebrate other women. I dunno, I do this all the time, but I have some pretty great women in my life.

When we lived in Eastern Ontario, I never settled into a group of women friends. We were there for 11 years, but I worked an hour away from home, so there wasn’t any socializing with the people I worked with. There were the hockey moms, but even they never folded me in beyond sitting with me at the arena(s) during practises and games. It’s one of the biggest contributors as to why we decided to move back to Southern Ontario.

Now, I have a bunch of womenfriends- some from Waybackland when we went to school together; many from volunteering at the army cadet corps; some from work and minor hockey and moms of Child’s friends, and some  that just arrived in mysterious circumstances and we’ve stuck.

In some cases, I’ve made a friend that’s tied directly to an activity (work, or hockey or cadets), sometimes those friendships survive when the tie isn’t there, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the friendship gets downgaded to Acquaintance or Peer. It’s lovely when you meet by accident, but you don’t orchestrate those meetings anymore. It’s OK. It happens.

So, on this chilly evening, while my gentlemen associates are out in the garage muscling the snowblower into job compliance, I’m thinking about my womenfolk.

To all the women who changed my career trajectory, or have been my mentor, or denied me access to the roof, or didn’t laugh right out loud at my WhiteHotFury and Furthermore emails (or desire for the tomato-stacking career change), here’s to you. To the women who’ve looked to me as a mentor, here’s to you.

To the women who I’ve never met, but I’ve watched in a TedTalk or read in a blog or an article who’ve made me think, here’s to you.

To the women who have taught me the value of charm and snark in equal measure, here’s to you. To the women who show me hourly, daily, and weekly the value of humour and grace and strength, here’s to you. To the women who enable me one day, and pull me off the ledge on the next day, here’s to you.

To the friends who know were the bodies are buried and the friends with the bail money, here’s to you.

To the women who share their lives with me over social media because there are hours of distance between us, here’s to you. To the women who share their lives with me over social media because there are work schedules and family obligations between us, here’s to you, too.

To the girls I interact with regularly at cadets who renew me with their enthusiasm. And to my nieces and my neighbour kids, who show me their world with such great perspective, here’s to you. To my sister and sister -in-law and sisters-of-choice, to my aunts and my mom who are the kind of family I wish every woman could have, here’s to you.

I’m not saying that I don’t have some pretty stellar men in my life, but today, here’s to my womenfolk.