7 Women I'm Happy to Have in My Life ...

Not all girls can say their mom is their best friend, I know, so I’ll completely understand if you can’t quite relate to this. I can’t say mom is prefect, of course, I know I wasn’t always the perfect daughter myself. However, this woman was always there to listen, give me the best advice possible and try to understand me, despite the fact that “that’s not how things were done back when she was a teen.” She is the most important woman in my life and she definitely deserves the first place.

She can be incredibly mean, ruthless and even ungrateful, but when things get ugly, I know I can count on her. She has something like a “sixth sense”, an ability to smell bad people a mile away and, even though her methods of informing me that I’m about to make a mistake are utterly strange, I always appreciate her advice and feel happy because I know she cares for me. She’s my little nervous wreck and my little mean witch but I guess that makes all those times when she’s incredibly nice feel extra special. My sis will always be my number two, right after mom and right next to my bro. They are my life.

She was there in good and bad times and she’ll continue on being there as something more – as my maid of honor and as my godmother. She has all the qualities a BFF should have, plus she’s fun to be around and isn’t insisting on “voluntary quarantine” like my previous, jealous, unbelievably competitive BFF.

This woman has cleared the path for me and, when I say “cleared”, I mean red carpet and stuff. Coming from a very patriarchal family, in which father had to be involved in every decision from finances to home decorations, I simply felt relieved to see how different my “new” family is. This woman is not your stereotype house-wife, oh no! She’ll make sure you have a home cooked meal every day, she’ll clean and babysit grandkids but there are some decisions only she is allowed to make. Thank God she has raised her son this way too, so now I have a man that goes to IKEA to “help carry the bags” because “everything that involves any type of shopping is something he was never asked to take part in”. A girl must have her time to get ready, must have her space and trinkets, it’s not fair for her to stay up washing the dishes, etc, etc, etc… He’ll spoil me, I tell you! All, thanks to his mom.

My sis-in-law and I look so much alike, our own mothers have mistaken one for the other on multiple occasions. LOL! I totally love this girl because she has made me feel comfortable and, when you are a total stranger who can’t say much more than “thank you” and “hello”, feeling accepted means the world. She spoke English with me despite the fact that her English wasn’t very good and, she spoke with me a lot, despite the fact that she isn’t a very talkative person.

My high school Literature teacher is dynamite and I’m always happy to see her face. This woman has made my high school years interesting and she has given me some valuable tips. She would often ask us girls to stay longer and then we’d have a “girl class” – a survival course themed, “How to be the strong, beautiful, smart and get away with it in this cruel world.”

I’m going to put her last because she’s long gone but I simply refuse to stop thinking about her. I took after my dear granny and my mom often looks at me and says, “Wow, the older you get, the more you look like her.” She lives in my childhood memories, on pictures and in words and expressions she used to use. My granny was definitely great, she was a woman with the capital W. She was a school teacher, great cook, her house was always perfectly clean, her nails perfectly painted and her hair perfectly curled. How the hell did she manage to do all that, raise two kids and 4 grandkids and still have energy to bake sweets and pastries, read books and spend time with us kids?? I have no idea!

These were the woman I’m happy to have in my life – Which are yours? Which women have managed to get under your skin and how often do you acknowledge everything they have done for you?