The Sisterhood of The Travelling Pants 1

     Guys… I am a little sad. It is literally almost the end of March and I’ve been enjoying blogging  so much, just organically sharing the lessons I have learned and continued to learn from my tribe of queens has been an extremely cathartic process. If you have just started reading the blog and have no idea what I am on about, March is Women’s History, so on the blog this month, I have been talking through different positive attributes and character traits every week, and highlighting women in my life that exemplify these qualities.

     “The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants” is a series of four novels written by Ann Brashares, and a two-part movie adaptation with the same title, that tells the whirlwind story of four teenage girls who share a pair of blue jeans, and much like their friendship, they all bring something different, but it fits all four of them perfectly. This pair of blue jeans quickly becomes more than an item of clothing, as this coming-of-age story unfolds, it becomes the fabric of their entire friendship and the very thing that holds them together as they drift away and explore their own individual journeys. So, naturally it is the perfect reference point for this story because it truly reflects my own relationship with my sisters. Except the perfect pair of blue jeans are our entire wardrobes, all three of us. In part one, we are throwing shade and catching feelings and not catching feelings and throwing more shade. I feel like more than anything, my sisters have taught me how to authentically and organically become “other”, unconsciously by fiercely being exactly who they are and consciously by letting me throw shade at the regular population’s failed attempts. And I mean sometimes it all comes off a little harsh or dry especially when the shade is directed at me, but we get each other, we get each other on a level that allows us to remember that none of us are mean spirited. No matter how hard we have to dig, whether it takes 3 minutes or 3 days, we do it because we know there’s kindness in there somewhere.We all have the same extremely sarcastic tone and the same bone dry sense of humour so we get along great, we never really run out of things to talk about, we can talk for hours and hours and I love it (well except when we’ve been talking for 3 hours straight and it’s 2:28am).

     Reyna Biddy once said “you can only get better at what you practice often, practice being yourself; the one you are behind closed doors, let people love that person,” and my sisters let me be that person and they love her fiercely. We hear over and over again that practice makes perfect and it seems repetitive and a little redundant to remind you that you can only get good at being yourself if you practice but I promise this is important. It is important because being yourself is often uncomfortable and inconvenient, and being authentic often makes you look “weird”or “uncool” to begin with, but it gets better… I think, I hope. The “best” of us struggle with the same crippling fear of being rejected or judged or misunderstood or not liked or unpopular. It is not hard to see how pretending to be someone you are not can be a much easier, much better deal. For one, being someone you are not and getting rejected, is much easier to deal with than being yourself and getting rejected, because there are at least 6 billion fake versions of you but only one real one.

Practising being yourself is important also because social media makes it so easy to lose sight of who you are. Social media makes it so that you are constantly being scrutinized. Social media has become like an interview, and in many cases it is (something like 80% of employers search for their candidates on social media before the first in-person interview), to where it is stoic and noble to admit your weaknesses but there is also an unspoken obligation to tie it all up in a pretty pink bow. We constantly demand the truth but the truth is, the truth we demand is not the truth that is the truth, it is the truth that we envision in our minds, the truth that we unconsciously want the truth to be. And to prove it, here’s nine “other” fails…

1. We say we want a woman  to show her scars and stretch marks and flabs and folds but when she does, we think “good for her” not “oh my goodness, she’s gorgeous.” This ridiculous need to seem “perfect” comes from the illusion that we are the only ones with flaws and stretch marks and baggage and darkness. But as Ernest Hemingway so astutely points out, the truth is “we are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.”
2. I feel like I woke up one morning and it was suddenly uncool to like Beyoncé and Chris Brown and Usher and all the regular-Joe, mainstream artists. Now everyone is all about Solange and Kehlani and SZA and Khalid, and I mean I love SZA and my little sister is OBSESSED with Khalid, so by association, I am too. This is not the problem. The problem is that there are people who think they are like music connoisseurs or something, and their music taste somehow makes them “better” than the rest of us. Answer me this, wouldn’t you rather enjoy your “crazy in love” in peace than join “chopping mouth association” on top being cool? The truth is I love Bruno Mars and Drake and Beyonce, and I’m fine with that, but I also feel pressure to be artsy-fartsy-vibey-cool.
3. Being on social media does not qualify anyone for a PhD in maturity, ok? Like, please what is that about? Social media is not for everyone and that is perfectly ok. In fact, Portalndia is not on Instagram and mi rei is, and there’s about two pictures of her in total on there, but that’s just because like I say, they are both super private. No one likes that one annoying person in the group who wants to put everything on Snapchat, but it is not fair to treat everyone who is on Snapchat like they are compulsive.
4. I feel like everyone knows someone who is on some phony-ass, “flower child”, “septum piercing”,“hippie-dippy” shit. Is it by force to be alternative? 
5. My favourite “other” has to be the “naturalista,” the “my hair is natural , so if you are Black and your hair isn’t, then you are either self-hating or a sell-out.” My hair is natural and believe it or not, it was not my choice, just bad timing I guess. I have no tolerance for ANYONE who hair shames. 
6. Ooo and the boys who claim to “like girls natural, natural hair, natural nails, no makeup.” Ooo but “I like my men tall, dark, handsome and rich!” I guess we are both going to have to settle, aren’t we?
7. Another favourite “other” of mine is the “couch potato/old lady” other. The “I don’t go clubbing, I would just rather stay home, read a good book and have a glass of red wine” other. Like, ok sweetie, good for you, you should do that then. The hole-and-corner, tongue-in-cheek insinuation that staying in on Friday night somehow makes one more mature is beyond me.
8. Sex. The “Ooo she said bad word!, Oh what must we do?, i’m pretty sure they are directly related to Jesus” other, the ones who act like sex is such a taboo and you are just a horrible person for wanting to talk about it. So irritating. Then of course, there’s the obnoxiously suggestive “other” that tries so desperately, to give off this bogus comfortability, borderline nonchalance with sex. Again, irritating. Just act normal, the fact that you feel comfortable enough to talk about sex does not make you a ho, it makes you an adult. And anyone who acts like they are not at least curious about sex, virgin or not, is a… wait for it…. LIAR! SURELY we can reach a happy medium.
9. Weed. Oooo she’s on one today. My friend had a birthday thing a couple of years ago and it was interesting, to say the least. Basically, after we got done with dinner, we all headed outside the restaurant to get cabs. While we waited, my friend pulled out a blunt, lit it, took a puff and passed it to the next person and then the next person took a puff and passed it to me. Only thing is I don’t smoke weed, absolutely no problem with the ADULTS who do, but I, Ninioritse, do not. Before I could politely refuse the now slightly unsanitary offer, “oh no she doesn’t do that!” And I instantly felt the judgment and thought to myself, I have been totally respectful of your choice, why am I being called out and made to feel weird about mine?

My sister Portlandia made cool look cool before it became cool. I feel like living with her, while unbearable sometimes has really influenced the girl I am today. She has taught me to be relentless in rooting for myself, my success and my happiness. She has taught me to think for myself. She has taught me to think of what I think of my own actions and decisions before I think of what other people may or may not think about my actions and decisions. I say this, but I also unconsciously make the decisions I feel she will be the most proud of me for. My sister ‘mi rei’ is just my best girl. She is the smartest, most focused, most loving, most forgiving, most encouraging person in my life. She holds me in such high regard that it scares me. No, you know what scares me? It is the fact that she forces me to look at myself the way she looks at me. She forces me to see myself in the best possible light and fights tooth and nail to hold me up there, because trust me, I continue to give her enough reasons to drop me. More than anything, my sisters are two of the largest pieces of my heart and I hope I make them proud every day.