RIP Grrl Genius Blog

Cathryn Michon's sensational blog, Grrl Genius, is shutting down.

Although I know that just about anyone reading this already knows that the blog is ending, I feel a need to write about it.

I feel bereft, as if I have just lost a family member, and in a way, this is true. The grrl genius blog (and Cathryn) was not just amusing, thought-provoking and witty. It did not just celebrate the wonders of being a Grrl Genius or an enlightened male.

It created, more than anything else I have ever seen on the web, a family. A wild, multi-cultural, multi-national, sometimes disjointed family that often saw impassioned differences of opinions (if not cyber yelling) but none the less, a family.

The blog was a secure place that we could all turn to, and as such, it became a safe, comforting locale, just like returning to the family home (and, for some that do not have that home, probably in some ways replaced it). It gave us all a chance to speak, to share our deepest feelings, and to gain love & support. Yes, most of us never met/ will never meet. That said, I don't think it will ever matter. The blog managed to transcend the fact that it was entirely virtual, and become a part of each of our lives. It was a place to laugh, to cry, to rail against injustice. What was best, it was a place wherein we were supported for doing so, encouraged not just to speak our minds, but to yell them from our keyboards into the ears of a receptive and loving cyber-family.

Thank you Cathryn for giving us this place, for not only your words and wisdom, but also for the family you encouraged us to create. Thank you all for the support and love you gave me during my struggles to start up my career, my learning pains through falling in love & moving in with Jeff (with whom I will be celebrating our first year of 'marriage' within the next two weeks), through the fire that left me homeless. Thank you for your ideas, wisdom, comments, jokes, support, encouragement, sympathy and love.

Thank you for all being part of the place I went for a 'pick-me-up', to feel empowered, and to see just what 'sisterhood' can create - a vibrant, living, supportive family!

I will miss the blog, and everyone on it, very deeply. It has been part of my life for the last 18 months, and although I was involved in more than one argument on it, I will honestly miss everyone whom contributed positively to it. I will miss getting to be a spectator & commentator in your lives, just as I will miss your support in mine.

I know, to some, this might sound weird - as if I am living on the web instead of in real life- but it's how I feel. Of course, this isn't like losing a member of my actual family, and I have many others that I can go to for physical as well as mental & emotional support. But it still means something to me to lose Cathryn's words, and the words of everyone else, losing the smile that seeing everyone's supportiveness & friendly personalities & achievements celebrated on the site always gave me. It was a forum to celebrate everything that makes us uniquely US, without fear of being swatted down by others, or ridiculed. It was a place not only to make a claim to everything that makes us wonderful women (from our stances on education and abortion rights to our concerns about how many margaritas we’d need to consume before we could all go on a bikini beach party together), but also to be mentored and applauded in doing so.

We have celebrated so many wonderful events on the blog - Joy's being accepted to grad school, M triumphantly returning to teaching, LawSchool Kirsten becoming just that, Maria joining the diplomatic corps, UKYankee's marriage, AKCop Girl's engagement, GG's "Cook Off!", and we have also provided support for each other during the hard & even terrible moments - Jenn's struggles with both her ex & all the care her family needs, NoIssue's marital troubles, me (NGG) loosing my home, and, most terribly, Sandi's husband being diagnosed with cancer.

We have shared it all; deep dark moments of anguish and fear, moments of tragedy, moments of triumph, moments of spellbinding joy and happiness. And through it all, we were there for each other.

As such, I can say that I am losing a family with the end of the Grrl Genius blog - my virtual family.

Best wishes to everyone reading this that was part of this family - my cyber sisters and brothers, our cyber 'big sister', GG, and our 'cyber mommy', the amazing MFD.

Please stay in touch, and hopefully, one day, we will all be able to have a 'cyber-family' reunion thanks to what GG started, and the continuing wisdom & power of the Grrl Genius Movement.

The Blogsphere

Alternatively titled: Confession of a Grrl Genius Addict

So, I have a confession to make. Each and every day, I sneak a bit of a drug. Well, actually, lately, it’s not been so much a little bit, as a full-on addiction. I take time out at work for it several times a day, I even feed my habit at times from home or during the weekends.

This addiction is getting pretty serious, because, not only does it take up my time, it’s affecting the quality of my work (or it would, if there was anything to apply quality to here).

It is, of course, the grrl genius blog- a wonderful community of women who come together virtually to communicate with each other & share their accomplishments & fuck-ups, to ask for advice & to offer support. It’s run by the head grrl genius, Cathryn Michon, an amazing & inspiring woman who has collected around her a community of like-minded women who all believe in the grrl genius philosophy.

And I’m proud to be one of them!

Let’s face it, with the blaas of winter this year being combined with a dead-end job that doesn’t offer me any type of mental or vocal exercise, I need others to talk to. Now, I could get Jeff fired by calling him every day several times, but first he doesn’t have a office & secondly, well- he’ll get fired. Instead, I have my fellow grrl geniuses, with which I discuss either the topic that GG introduces, or whatever we feel like or move onto.

And seeing the output we manage is fascinating. Not because of the quantity of it (although, judging by how much some of us put out, I am not the only bored administrative assistant on the site), but because of the quality.

This is not a chat room or message board where people fight, swear and try to hurt each other. Yes, there have been arguments (especially over the concept of working mothers), but for the main part, there is support. One of the grrl geniuses recently admitted to having an affair & asked for advice. While advice was forthcoming, it was in the form of suggestions, and most importantly, it was all delivered with love. Whether or not we had been in that boat, on the other side, approved or disapproved, we all gave this woman love, asked that she take care of herself, let her know that we were thinking about her. We gave her strength, and encouragement- encouragement to move past her guilt & discover both WHY & what is the best thing for her to do. When another woman was thrown out by her emotionally abusive boyfriend, we gave her encouragement, both to be tough & say “NO” when he tried to contact her again, and to also realize what a liberating, wonderful opportunity it was for her- no matter how it hurt, that it was NOT her fault, and that the world was full of better opportunities for her. And whether or not it has, she feels that our support has helped her to get through it, to venture forth filled with self-love & optimism for the future.

These same women pick each other up when they are down- when one of us is having a bad day, we can admit it on the blog, and receive encouragement and support. I am buoyed especially by the other women of my age, who are also searching to move their career dreams forward & encourage me with mine. I go onto this website to announce job interviews, and they are almost happier for me than I am for myself. The support I feel is amazing, almost staggering.

I know we are a virtual community, and that my chances are slim that I will ever meet any of these women (although, as some of us have dreams of becoming authors one day, maybe we WILL meet each other, or at least Cathryn). That said, we are still a sisterhood of grrl geniuses, and that is exactly what I feel I have in this community- sisterhood.

Now, this is not to say that I don’t have a wonderful sister in my own sister, because I do. She’s amazing, supportive, funny and everything terrific that a little sister should be (even if she is prettier & smarter than me, damn it). But this community is also my sisters- my virtual sisters. And in this, they remind me of nothing so much as long-distance family, something I am very knowledgeable about.

Yes, they do not effect my daily life, they do not play a role in it (although I ‘talk’ to them just about daily). But the love they offer IS in my life daily, I know I can go to them for support and encouragement, because our anonymity allows us to be honest & also to open up our hearts & share love with each other without the fear of being hurt- just like sisters do. So, they are my virtual sisters- whether they be the ones my own age, that share my trials & tribulations & make me laugh with their own antics, or whether they be older & sager members of our community, whom take the role of the big sister I would always have liked to have had- regardless, they are my sisters.

And I’m grateful for each & everyone of them and the love they offer, whether it is to me or to other members of the blog. Because, through reading every comment, we imbibe each others’ support & love- when one grrl genius is encouraged, we read that encouragement & feel it in ourselves- because we know it will be there for our individual self when we have need to call for it.

Because we’re grrl geniuses, and that’s what grrl geniuses do- succeed in themselves & encourage others to do the same!