My life is full of strong women.

Everywhere I look, there’s a beautiful human being, full of passion and life and fire. I have always had a large group of women friends. In junior high, we made toothbrush bracelets and snuck out to meet boys in the graveyard. We were tragic and awkward and fumbled through life like every other new teenager, but we did it together. Every weekend was spent at the cabin in the woods, staying up too late in AOL chat rooms, talking to random creepers on the Internet. High school was much of the same, just throw in a boy you’d never want to bring home to mom, and you still had those semi-humans trying to figure out how to exist.

In college it was hiding monarch tequila in the laundry basket, and stretching our sexually liberated limbs. Today, my relationships with these women consist of long hikes and coffee dates, realizing that 30 is a few years away, we are figuring out what aging looks like. There’s something so beautiful in knowing that I will grow old with this community of women. We will be in our 80s, walking around Greenlake in bright colors, gossiping about romance, work, life and babies, just like we’ve done for years.

Now that I am settled into my actual self, I can gather with these friends and we can reflect on what it means to be women. We’ve all had people throughout our lives tell us that our self worth depends on whether or not men find us attractive. We are figuring out ways to remove this heavy coat.

As women we are able to own our sexuality and be proud of what that means to us. We are outspoken and loud about being who we are, and daring people to judge our choices. Our lives are never mirror images and we are growing apart and together simultaneously. What is right for her will never be right for me, and there’s such magic in that. In the end, all that matters is that there is still joy in the other’s eyes, and happiness is always at the tip of our tongues.

We have all learned to acknowledge our flaws, and we try and navigate how to be good humans, regardless. We hold out our insecurities out to each other, because to share these burdens is how we survive.

Now that we are adults, not striving for unreachable ideals, we can become the friends we didn’t think we could be. We aren’t perfect, we aren’t going to agree on everything, and we will always do irritating things. But to have a group of women means you have people that will hold all of these broken pieces, these ill-fitting parts, and still be there.

To say that I am blessed doesn’t begin to explain how I feel about my friends. Who I am today is because of the relationships I have with these women. I want to raise a toast and celebrate them, because without them I am fairly certain I would be lost. In honor of International Women’s Day, this post and this life is for them. For all the patience they’ve had with me, for all the adventures, for all the memories and for the years that we have left together. There’s so much of this world to be explored with these beautiful babes, and I can’t wait for the stories we will tell.

My Morning Smoothie 

A part of loving my body and starting that process of self-love and self-care is being healthier. I’m working on it. My work and social life has been hard on my body, and I’m trying to be more mindful. It also helps that my roommate has a Vitamix. Needless to say, I’ve been inhaling these smoothies in the morning, and they are damn good.

• 1 frozen banana
• ½ cup frozen blueberries
• 2 handfuls of spinach or kale
• ½ cup orange juice
• ½ cup water
• ¾ – 1 cup almond milk
• 2 dates, pits removed
• 1 tsp cocoa powder (optional if you want to make it more like a dessert)
• Hemp seeds (optional, but I sprinkle some on top)

Put everything in the blender and blend! Pretty simple stuff… But who says a recipe has to be complicated?

*beer is almost like a smoothie, right?