Girlfriends

Last weekend, I spent four glorious days with some of my closest girlfriends from college, and it was nothing short of fantastic. Three of us flew down to meet the fourth in Miami, and then we drove west to Marco Island where we checked into a modest little condo that sat a block back from the beach.

When I returned to work on Tuesday, several colleagues mentioned I had a “glow” and they wanted to know about the trip. My response was sincere and void of any hyperbole when I offered that the trip was soul-rejuvenating.

We met our freshman year in college; the fall of 1996. I knew not a single human when I stepped off the plane in Pittsburgh, having flown across the country to attend the University of Pittsburgh. These were the girls who had dorms on my hall, and somehow, we naturally just gravitated towards each other. Our collective friendship has run the gauntlet after two decades, experiencing lots of highs but as well, bouts of silence and distance. But – as I wrote in a post on social media: I met these girls 21 years ago; we were babies, unsure of the women we would become. We have grown up together, sometimes separated by distance, some spans of silence, but always tied together by those formative early years. These are the women who know my story, and who champion the person I have become. These past few days were belly laughs, and tears, and filling in the blanks of the past two decades. I love them dearly, and hope my daughter one day finds a tribe as special as this one.

And that’s just it – the idea of a tribe. The people upon whom you rely, whether it be in big ways or small, but the ones who know all chapters of your life, the women who have read your story, and continue to stand by you. Those are the ones you hold onto. The language of a female friendship is unlike any other. In fact, sometimes there is no language in the literal sense. So many times last weekend, not a single word was uttered before we all fell into a pile of tear-induced, side-aching laughter. That deep kind of belly laugh that washes over you. There were stories of marriage and divorce, miscarriage and children, despair, and success. At one point we all disclosed how much we earned in our respective careers, and you know what was beautiful about that conversation? When my pals, who all make more than me, said their numbers aloud, I was genuinely proud of them. Here were these women with whom I shared dorm rooms with, women I remember studying their asses off, and dammit – they deserve these amazing careers! The crawl in my mind was not one of jealousy but one of total happiness. I mean lets be real, my friends are total badasses.

As someone who wears many hats, it was lovely that no one was requesting anything of me – no papers needed to be graded, no lunch needed to be packed, no appointments needed to be made, no bills needed to be paid, no photos needed to be edited. I was unfettered for a weekend, and it was, in fact, soul-rejuvenating. It came as no surprise that we all emphatically agreed to not let another two decades go by before hanging out again, and there may or may not be an impromptu meet up this fall, and perhaps another bigger trip in the works for 2020.

Finally, I realize that I am quite lucky to have been able to take a vacation, to spend the time and money on myself in this manner, and it has not gone unnoticed. Yes, I am owning my privileged. The time spent with these amazing, brilliant, and wildly successful women, while the kick off to my self-proclaimed Year of 40, was, in retrospect, sorely needed. I came back rested, happy, resolute in my belief of the importance of friendships, and ready to make the most of 2018. These women, this friendship, is necessary to my ability to live my very best life.

Sara, Pam, Erin (and Jenny): here’s to another two decades.