Here's to Being Black, Bold, and Broke

Girls, girls, girls, oh how I love my girls. My friendships with women especially in more recent years and really since my departure to France have meant the world to me. Truly without the love from my friends, I have no clue where I’d be. But I struggled with making strong female friendships when I first started college.

My friendships with my bestfriends of like 10 years came crashing fast, and I think that was my first exposure to a sense of heartbreak. I mean truly I was saddened by those friendships ending and cried often for a couple months afterwards. Hindsight I now see why they ended but the initial pain of it ending was still intense. 

After that I lost faith in female friendships and was always on the defensive when it came to them. I was extra guarded, didn’t trust anyone, and was ending friendships over the pettiest things to try and protect my peace. I became paranoid and worried that I would never be able to make lasting girl friendships. 

I thank God that much of that paranoia and fear dissolved by the end of my sophomore year and going into my junior year. I made great friends and was able to maintain them and thanks to my relationship at the time, I learned productive ways to communicate issues, anxieties and to let my walls down with my friends. And before I knew it I was collecting friends like infinity stones. 

Now not all the friendships I started to collect stuck around but the ones that mattered did, and when I decided to let go of a friendship it was truly because I felt it had run its course and there was nothing more I could give nor wanted from it. 

In learning about myself in friendships, how to maintain them with each friend, and managing my expectations, I realized that it isn’t about collecting as many friends as possible but more so about the quality of the friendships. I’d rather have 5 friends who I know love me, I trust, love and care about than 15 fair weather friendships riddled with flakiness, acquaintanceships, no loyalty and untrustworthiness. 

The friendships I have now have weathered so many storms and even with me being across the Atlantic (and 6 hours of time dividing us) they have continued to shower me with their love. Our phone calls will last hours while I cook dinner and they get ready for work or classes. We share dumb Tiktoks or Instagram memes at all hours of the day that make me feel like I’m just on the opposite end of their couch with them sitting in silence and giggling, even on the other side of the world.

My friends that I’ve made here have been amazing too, there’s nothing I love more than our silly little sleepovers where we watch old movies like the Cheetah Girls and pick who gets to be who. And surprisingly although my name is Raven I typically chose Aqua UNLESS we’re talking about Cheetah Girls 2 where I would then obviously pick Raven because she had that cute Spanish man fall for her in the end.

And through this breakup all my friends have been there for me; to listen to me cry nonstop, or yell in anger and fear, or making me laugh to cheer me up. And I often refer to my high council for any and everything.

I believe every girl should have a high council in which they refer to, your close girlfriends ranging from 3 to 5 friends that you run text messages that are going to be sent to a man by, outfit options, asking “can I be mean for a second?”, updates on your digestive system (even when they don’t ask), whether you should text that man back or not, and so much more. The list runs long but your high council is always there to give their opinions 100% unfiltered, catch you when you fall and love you through it all. 

The power of girlhood is that you should feel as though you’re never truly alone. That aside from your family, you have your girls to catch you, to call you out when you need it, love you at all times, laugh with you so hard there are tears, be your confidant and have a nice glass of wine or a martini with. 

If you haven’t the fortune of experiencing the pleasures of girlhood being that you’re struggling to make those connections or you are unfortunately a man (yuck!), I hope you find them, have them and hold them close. My female friendships are something I wouldn’t trade for any amount of money and so to my friends reading, I love you dearly. Thank you for all the support and love. I don’t know where I’d be without you. Xx