Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Right?

My sorority sisters and me. Fall 1993.

My latest novel, Justice (release date March 25, 2026), starts at Purdue University in the fall of 1992. I chose this time period for a specific reason; to me it was the best time to come of age. Pre-Internet bliss, or as my friend Karen put it, “Such sweet precious pre-technology days.” We did have the internet, I was a computer science major and emailing already, but it was text based and pretty lame and dialing up was like a game of cat-and-mouse. Unless you were in the computer lab, you weren’t guaranteed your landline dialup would work. Regardless, the Internet was a DARPA and university lab-rat, not the mental force in everyone’s back pocket that it is now.

We were free-ranged humans back then. The music, art, movies, and fashion of the nineties were enviable. So was the lifestyle of the twenty-something. I’ve often felt that I was born in the perfect year, 1972, where I still got to play outside while also playing Pacman when it came out, learning to code in eighth grade on a Mac IIE, and curating mixtapes.

Thus, when a new set of characters came to me in October demanding their story be told, I said yes, as long as it took place in the early nineties, to which they obliged. I set it at Purdue out of laziness, that’s where I went to school and I knew what the campus looked like back then, where the key buildings were, who the teachers were, etc. I didn’t need to do any major research to give both the readers and the characters a setting.

There are so many themes that came to light while writing the story of Justice and Grace, and I hope to share many of them over the next months as the novel goes to production, but one that has been close to me lately is the concept of sisterhood. Justice doesn’t focus too much on this, however the main female protagonist, Grace, lives in a sorority and as I wrote the scenes that take place in her sorority house, I was often transported back to my own days as a sister. One of my test readers was a sister with me and she provided priceless insights into the storyline, but she also made me yearn for those days in a way I haven’t for a long time, if ever.

I’m not saying that living in a sorority is perfect, nothing is, but as I edit this novel, a certain sense of grief has awakened within me. Not only for lost innocence and the complications of early love, since that is the plot of the story, but more for the female companionship I had back then. Female companionship that continued when I, like Grace, moved to Chicago and launched my adult life with many of my girls. Female companionship that involved groups of us putting on our makeup and going through one another’s closets, going out together, sitting in the bum room watching stupid movies, shopping, snacking while gossiping, listening to music, flipping through fashion magazines and reading the Cosmo sex articles out loud, and above all, being together. This sort of female companionship ended the moment I got married and had my first child.

That was twenty-seven years ago. What a long time to go without women in such a casual yet meaningful way. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband and my sons, but I never sat on the floor with them, braiding each other’s hair, while listening to pop music and talking about my friend’s new boyfriend. I have met many wonderful women since becoming an adult, but we rarely take the time to gather in someone’s basement and watch chick flicks together. I’ve belonged to dozens of book clubs, prayer groups, even a games night, yet all fizzled out within a year or less. Everyone would show up to the inaugural event and then over time, stop coming.

Women are too busy to commit. Work and family is enough for them.

When my kids were little, I was the one who left the girlfriend group first. I worked full-time and moved out to the suburbs and had small children to tend to. I was envious of those who still lived in the city and gathered after work for happy hour down the street from their offices. When my own children were older, those friends started having kids. Hence, I sought out new friends.

Over the years, I have made many acquaintances, some much closer than others. Yet other than a handful of strong one-on-one friendships, which I truly appreciate, I have no groups, no sisterhood to speak of. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get groups of women together, but it’s like herding cats. We can never get a date that works for everyone. I’m grateful that I get to see my “girls” every year, three other dear friends from my sorority, but that isn’t easy. We’ve been working on a 2026 date and location for three weeks and nothing has been agreed upon. I also have a brunch group forming here in Chicago with some other sisters. I love, love, love these events, though they too are hard to make happen and someone always cancels at the last minute.

When my kids were little, I’d hoped to meet moms in the neighborhood, but they all worked out of the house, so it was just me at the playground with my two littles. One day, a woman named Amber showed up with her two boys, and we were both startled and surprised at the other’s company. We immediately became friends, but eventually life moved us away from the other.

I made dear friends at my son’s school in Illinois, and a sisterhood began where we built a school together and formed friendships that stand today, but then I moved to California and since returning, it’s been hard to get that group together as well. All of them went their separate ways and are focused on work as well as their aging parents, now that their kids are grown.

In California, there were attempts as well and even a regular wine night, but our kids got older and then Covid hit and yeah, that is over as well. My fire sisters? I will always be grateful for that year we clung to one another for dear life, while I hated the fire I loved that sisterhood, but yet again, “real” life took each one away and trying to organize even an annual dinner was so difficult, I stopped trying.

I thought when the kids were older, women would be interested in sisterhood again. I know a few women who have this and I am very envious. Until 1999, I always had access to girls. Growing up, I could go down the street and see Lisa or Gretchen. We could go to the beach in the neighborhood across Bonner Road and see everyone. Often, we would gather at Mellisa’s and watch VHS movies (a lot of scary ones, if I recall) or play Pitfall on her Atari for hours. In the summers, I would escape from the heat in Cathy’s basement with several other girls and we would watch MTV. I went to an all-girls high school which was one big sisterhood and some of the best times I have ever had with women was during those years. Honestly, the Class of 1990 was hilarious. In college, even before I rushed a sorority, I would wander down the dormitory hall to Trina’s room where I often caught her singing to the Black Crows or Guns-N-Roses, or Hannah’s or Julie’s and get a game of euchre going (Julie cheated, I swear).

I miss women in that setting. Working for money together is not the same. It is not a sisterhood, it is a duty, a place where we must compete (and no, that’s not men’s fault) and accomplish things. Sisterhood is about presence, giggling, planning trips together, letting our children play while we drink iced tea, playing euchre, shooting the shit, painting each other’s nails, crafting together, laughing and telling stories. That is sisterhood and no job, not even one that is majority female, like working in a grade school, can compare.

It’s not the men’s fault we don’t commit to sisterhood either. They do not care at all if we gather in our homes to make bread, soup, and giggle. They do not care if we crowd the dining room table and discuss St. Augustine’s Confessions. Men actually understand the need to be with friends. I’ll give you a perfect example: my husband has belonged to a men’s ping-pong group since 2008, when we moved to California. He has attended ever since. The club itself is coming up on 20 years, I believe, of meeting every Thursday in perpetuity. I can’t imagine it. What a brotherhood. What commitment to the gift of fellowship. I’m in awe of those guys. They’re the best friends he’s ever had and the only reason we still go back to California (though I do love the land and the sea and right about now Chicago weather really, really sucks).

I wonder why men can commit to brotherhood in such a way. No, it isn’t selfish, it’s the ultimate form of self-care. It’s also organic and fun and there is no goal or point to it other than to get together and laugh. That’s what sisterhood is for those women lucky enough to have it even in their middle age. I made a new friend here in Chicago and we meet once a week. We tried opening it up to a larger group of women in hopes of forming a sisterhood, but after two weeks, they all were too busy to make it. So it’s me and Julie and honestly, I love the way we meet for coffee or happy hour and chat about everything. We often joke that she and I hung at the same bars in the mid-nineties but never met. I’m glad we met now because I love having a regular in my life like her.

I’m not mad at anyone, if you are someone who has been in and out of my life in this way since 1999, I love you, but you gotta admit, that book club, games club, playdate club, whatever club we tried to form, died quickly. It’s long over. My husband is still playing ping-pong with the same guys. So, I’m sad, and I miss you ladies, and it dawned on me last week while messaging my friend Karen how much I long for her and you.

It’s called grief. I mourn sisterhood.

I wonder if the next time I experience a true sisterhood will be when I’m old and widowed and in assisted living. I hope if that happens (and to be fair, I don’t like the words old, widowed, or assisted living, but alas, that’s a likely future), the other widows will finally let go of their family demands, their quest for money and power and progress, and sit with me while we knit, discuss the latest hot romance novel, watch old movies, or comb one another’s gray hair (what’s left of it) before a big night out of Bingo, while gossiping about our grandkids, the ridiculous old man who hits on all of us, and our latest health ailment. Or maybe I can convince my “girls” that we all move into a house together, like the Golden Girls, and we grow old together.

Though I don’t really want to wait until all our husbands are dead, you know? There’s great meaning to raising a family and loving a man, and I’d never trade it for Galentine’s Day or a life of singlehood. If what I’ve been reading is true, younger, single women have also lost sisterhood. Why? Where did it go?

Ladies, don’t you know that girls just wanna have fun?

If you’re a blessed one with a strong, regular sisterhood, share in the comments. PLEASE! I want to honor you and feel good about your sisterhood. I mean it, tell the world about your girls.