I Got Angels All Around Me. They Keep Me Surrounded.

"When you’re up, your friends know who you are. When you’re down, you know who your friends are."  I can truly say I've been up and down this year and I 100% know who my friends are.  I believe in having a tribe.  I also believe in being a girl's girl.  I hate to hear women say they don't like being around other women or they don't know how to be friends with other women.  Like, how the hell can you call yourself a woman if you can't get along with yourself since you find women to be so grating?  In fact, Roxane Gay has an excellent essay about being friends with other women in her book 'Bad Feminist' but I accidentally left my copy on an airplane and I have yet to replace it - so I can't post a picture of it here.  However you can visit this link to see her 13 rules for female friendship.  

Now back to finding your tribe, since moving back home, I've really found a great group of friends - ones that support each other, call each other out on our BS, have great weekend retreats and trips and most importantly provide endless laughs.  In addition to the friends I've made in person, there are people I don't see or speak to everyday but I know they have my back.  I have people I speak to on a daily basis on Twitter and while they may not fit the traditional description of 'friends', they are definitely a part of my tribe.  Having a dope tribe is super essential to your success and overall well being.  

When I left my job, everyone in my tribe did everything they could to see me back on top.  Nearly everyday people were whatsapping me, DM-ing me, sending me Facebook messages and emails with job openings or encouragement.  People were reading my blog (which became a real passion project during my down time, and still is).  And generally my tribe was showing up and showing out for me in ways I continue to be grateful for.

If it wasn't for my tribe, I'd honestly probably still be sitting at home - applying for jobs by day and binge watching everything in my YouTube subscriptions by night.  I've had people that I follow on Twitter send me job opportunities - some that I've made it to 2nd round interviews for.  I've had people add me to job seeking groups.  I've had people send the perfect word of encouragement just when I needed it.  I've even had people just check on me to see that I haven't died of boredom yet.  And while some of these came from my friends who I saw on a daily basis, a lot came from people who don't even live on the same island as I do.  (Although we live on the same island now).

This isn't to discount my face to face friends, because they are definitely the kind of friends anyone could hope for.  All of us have gone through ups and downs and are at different stages in life but I can definitely look to them regardless of what I'm going through.  What does your tribe look like?  Because mine is pretty flippin dope if I do say so myself.