My girl friends of more than 30 years have remained committed to girls night out for decades. We meet to let our hair down and catch up with each other's lives. As we grew our education, careers, private lives and vocations took us in different directions but to this day we will meet and catch up. Over time these meetings started to follow a familiar rhythm. A potluck dinner with barbecue meats, home made salads, red and white wine and lots of beers. Dinner and drinks ac...companied by dancing and party games, charades is a favorite. The conversation is always interesting but even more interesting is how the content has changed over the years.
Our conversations used to be all about boyfriends with the usual suspects facing the same relationship challenges. Someone had scored a hot catch, someone was getting engaged, then someone disappeared for a while and the news leaked that their engagement had broken and they were licking their wounds. Soon everyone seemed to be getting married or having babies. A few remained hardened bachelorettes as the conversation turned to breastfeeding and different breast pumping devices. Before long it was the marital struggles, domestic violence and the friends offered a shoulder to lean on. Marriages broke, some survived, lovers made up, people got promoted at work some got Doctorates, some became successful others regressed. We are now mothers, widows, spinsters, divorcees, 'single-but-looking', newly married and married for far too long; but still we meet for a good meal, fine wine, less dancing, more charades and lots of laughter. As it becomes harder to get us all together in the same room we meet in cyber space share stories and support one another when we can. The conversation these days is about hot flashes and the early or late onset of menopause. The content of the conversation may have changed but the tempo is still the same and the comforting familiarity of it all is such that anyone can jump into the conversation at any time and most likely we will all know what they are going to say.
— Our conversations used to be all about boyfriends with the usual suspects facing the same relationship challenges. Someone had scored a hot catch, someone was getting engaged, then someone disappeared for a while and the news leaked that their engagement had broken and they were licking their wounds. Soon everyone seemed to be getting married or having babies. A few remained hardened bachelorettes as the conversation turned to breastfeeding and different breast pumping devices. Before long it was the marital struggles, domestic violence and the friends offered a shoulder to lean on. Marriages broke, some survived, lovers made up, people got promoted at work some got Doctorates, some became successful others regressed. We are now mothers, widows, spinsters, divorcees, 'single-but-looking', newly married and married for far too long; but still we meet for a good meal, fine wine, less dancing, more charades and lots of laughter. As it becomes harder to get us all together in the same room we meet in cyber space share stories and support one another when we can. The conversation these days is about hot flashes and the early or late onset of menopause. The content of the conversation may have changed but the tempo is still the same and the comforting familiarity of it all is such that anyone can jump into the conversation at any time and most likely we will all know what they are going to say.
At 50 I know that the friends that survive the changing seasons and fortunes of time are those who make the effort to stay in touch even when we are least likely to want their company.
feeling thankful.
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