Every couple of years (every couple months, every couple weeks, every couple hours), a new article is released asking that same old post-feminist question: Can a woman truly have it all? Probably not (it's unlikely that you'll ever grow eagle wings, though, please, prove me wrong), but that doesn't mean that there's not a ton of amazing, super cool things that we can have and that several of us probably already do have.
Take me for example. I, by most definitions, am a woman. I identify as female and was born with female reproductive organs. I once fainted while drinking a mimosa at a brunch spot that I described to a friend as "cute" and, recently, I started sobbing while rewatching an episode of Friday Night Lights because "no one will ever love me as much as Coach loves Tami." Those, I believe, are the scientific qualifications for womanhood and I meet them with flying colors.
Sadly, I do not have it all. Like right now, for example, I do not have a plate of nachos or a talking dog or all of the dozens — literally dozens — of other things that my life is seriously lacking, but this is not about those things. This is about all of the great things that I do have and am generously willing to share with you:
- A scab on my right shoulder from what I say is a skateboarding accident, but is really from burning myself with a curling iron.
- A crumpled up paper bag on my floor that I keep meaning to throw away, but —UGH — later.
- A permanent retainer glued to the back of my two front teeth.
- An eye that I JUST realized is BIGGER than my other eye.
- A photograph of my first grade classmate who is now in prison for attempted murder.
- Three almost-empty bottles of Sriracha in my fridge.
- A flop sweat.
- A bunch of notes I've written dictating who I forgive and who I do not forgive in the event that I die unexpectedly.
- Relatedly, a will that I wrote while drunk, in pencil and on the back of a receipt, determining which of my friends gets to keep my shitty clothes.
- Occasional night terrors.
- An oscillating fan.
- Several entertaining anecdotes for when I'm finally interviewed on a podcast.
- A working accordion that I do not know how to play.
- A genuine feeling that, if we met, Mandy Moore and I could be really good friends.
- A baditude.
