As the daughter of a man, the sister of a man, the wife of a man (two if you count the divorce from one and marriage to The One), the mother of three men, and the grandmother of three grandsons and one bonus grandson, I sometimes find myself longing for the scent of a woman.

Now, before you jump head first in to a conclusion, don’t. I am not basing this longing on the sexual aspect but on the softness aspect. Being the only woman besides my wonderful mom, I feel outnumbered in the gender department. Since my mom won’t let me dress her up in frilly costumes (at least not until dementia sets in), I am woefully out of touch with the womanly side of life.

I know how to clean, cook, bake and sew. I know how to please my husband and discipline my offspring…but I miss the comfort of being feminine. Of lace and perfume and pretty things. Yesterday, I cleaned the table of tools, paperwork and dust and replaced them with a cloth table covering and a beautiful vase of flowers that a co worker presented to me as a going away gift (thank you Kim, again). Then came dinner which my husband and I cooked together. I moved the flowers to the side of the table so I could enjoy them; he moved them to the counter in the kitchen. “I’ll probably knock them over,” he said. We ate. We cleaned up. I went to move the flowers back to the table, somehow not commenting on the splotch of something setting a stain into the table cloth on his side.

So much for keeping it pretty…around here, it’s kept real.

It has always been this way. I was a tom boy growing up, favoring pants and bare feet over dresses and shoes. It’s pretty damned hard to climb a tree in Mary Janes. From those days of warmth and playing outside, I never really out grew the comfort zone that being a tomboy had to offer. After all, how many women (those of us who don’t tan) enjoy wearing panty hose in 90 degree weather? I wore jeans or pants to work most days and seldom change to anything nice afterwards. There are those rare occasions when I dress up but when I do, I think I clean up pretty well and I thoroughly enjoy feeling like a woman.

I should have pushed myself to make more female friends, but the pool from which to choose has been pretty limited. I suppose I could have bonded more with the ladies I used to share office space with, but in the major scope of life, I wasn’t all that important to them. After all, they were usually visiting the clique of friends formed before I arrived on the scene more than they were getting interested in my life. My BFF lives hundreds of miles away and we haven’t seen each other in the flesh for over thirteen years, so she is of little help in filling the void I have. Even when we talk now, I no longer feel the presence of a bond there anymore.

And so I continue to miss the feeling of being with females. I miss the powder/perfume/hairspray smells and settle for the soap/deodorant/aftershave odors that mingle with the manly scent. Or the sweaty, dirty, dusty smell of youthful boys.

While I look for ways to add pretty touches to the house where a real man lives, I try to remind myself that I was never a girly girl anyway. But sometimes, the flowers do look prettier than a hammer and pair of old leather gloves sitting on the dining table and clean 600 count sheets feel a whole lot nicer than cotton jersey my husband prefers. But I cope. I watch talk shows and dream of joining book clubs with other women, of shopping for high heeled shoes instead of a new pair of work boots, and of sharing laughter that reminds me of a soft spring rain.

Someday soon, I believe I will let my tomboy rest a bit and slide into a pretty summer dress and a flattering straw hat to keep the sun from freckling my nose and I’ll go for a walk with the best friend and woman in me and let her laughter fill the air.