I’m back from my perfect weekend in Sedona, where six of us celebrated my friend Anna’s 45th birthday. (It’s odd to have unlinkable friends, but there you have it. Some of my friends don’t have blogs.)
It was amazing to be in a gorgeous setting with great, beautiful friends. Three of us went to college together, and the two of them met Anna on a trip to Russia, and since Anna apparently had a life before she met us, two of her friends from her L.A. high school days).
It was perfect. We had spa treatments and prickly pear margaritas and tried to hire a male stripper and went on hikes and couldn’t stop looking all around us, feeling like we were on a movie set, because seriously, the mountains in Sedona are photoshopped.
We got up early and had breakfast in our suite, talking about our children, and crying a bit because being a mother is heartbreaking sometimes, and you’re not supposed to say so in the day-to-day but when you’re with the friends that know you best, you just let go. And you talk without worry that someone will pull the judgmental “hard? I don’t know, I love being a mother” card.
We laughed, too.
Oh my, how we laughed. I laugh a lot in my every day life, but on Friday night, when we were sitting around and looking at photographs from college and just talking, I laughed in a way that I thought would require medical assistance and a co-payment.
And then it was over.
I came home.
I came home to my family that made this trip possible and who I love and to an apartment that in my short absence looked like it hosted the Occupy Wall Street protest over the weekend. (To be fair, it wasn’t a Martha Stewart set before I left, either.)
And although I’m happy to be home, and I love my family and I wouldn’t trade them for all the vistas in the world, my God, in the privacy of this blog, can I tell you that I miss my girlfriends and that it hurts to live my life far away from them and to rely on the once-a-year-if-we’re-lucky meetings. And we’ve been lucky, because last year it was a wedding. It’s been merry so far, but I know what’s ahead.
But I’m trying to focus on how lucky I am.
How lucky I am to have such friends and to have had such a weekend.
Even without the stripper.
One year ago ...
- Cleanse - 2012
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: myhomemadehappy
November 14, 2011 at 9:16 am
I love laughing that kind of laugh with girlfriends. I live far away from mine too. It sucks! Makes those once a year visits so special though.
sounds like an amazing weekend! … and I hear you on the heartache of missing those amazing friends you can only see once a year (if that)
as for the male stripper? have i got a male stripper story for you! for a friend’s 21stbirthday (so, like, 100 year ago) someone hired her a male stripper as a surprise… (and, oh, it was a surprise!) as he was doing his thing, he decided to spread the “love” and not just shake it in front of the birthday girl, but prance around all of us surrounding her; when he got to me, he pushed me back so I was sitting on the bench behind me and started to really shake his goodies – directly in my face. and then? sweaty, gross, stripper balls smacked me in the forehead. oh yes they did. and that would be why there was NO soap left in the bathroom after that party, and also why I now hide whenever someone who looks like a male stripper passes by 🙂
Twitter: JoeHagyauthor
November 14, 2011 at 9:36 am
We had our “good old boys” reunion last week, I know what you mean (without the crying.)
I have a “Police” and “Fireman” costume and am able to travel…..just sayin!
Cranky Old Man
Twitter: sellabitmum
November 14, 2011 at 10:16 am
Girlfriend weekends are totally the best. The older I get the more I cherish them more and totally understand how awesome it would be to just bunk up with a bunch of ladies in a big house all year long..with perhaps a few cabana boys around for fun.
Also – unclickable friends – you mean you didn’t spend the whole weekend setting up everyone’s blogs?
Twitter: highlyirritable
November 14, 2011 at 10:24 am
Those are the best kind of weekend.
Those are the weekends that eliminate the need for the “hard? I don’t know, I love being a mother” card.
I love those kinds of weekends. And I love that you loved coming home. You are very blessed.
And Sedona is totally a movie set, I’m convinced of it. We stayed there for two nights with a view of those gorgeous mountains and had dinner outside by a brook and damn, I wish I had my big girl camera back then.
From my trench I would title this post: “Life of the rich and famous.”
Twitter: missbritt
November 14, 2011 at 3:16 pm
I *SO* get this. I hate not living by my girlfriends.
But you skipped the critical point – did you play Mah Jongg?
Twitter: kalisah
November 14, 2011 at 5:12 pm
I know how you feel. Last year I had a weekend like that with five friends from high school. After I came home, I felt like those people who have a near-death experience & wake up depressed because heaven was so perfect and beautiful.
Twitter: gdrpempress
November 14, 2011 at 5:52 pm
You know, I have two friends in real life that make me laugh b/c they are so crazy and unfiltered.
But, when I came home from BlogHer, after being with awesome after awesome…man…MAN…did I have the doldrums.
So many fantastic women. I am so lucky to have met them.
Twitter: Mamabirddiaries
November 14, 2011 at 11:45 pm
Old friends are the best. You can be completely yourself. It’s so freeing.
Twitter: mannahattamamma
November 15, 2011 at 7:11 am
This post hit me right in my missing-friends place. Which is just above the please-may-i-have-more-cheese place. I’m so far away from my dear friends, who aren’t all necessarily that nearby even when I’m in the States and it’s HARD. I mean, yes, my life is fine, I love my family, blah blah blah, but old friends? The best. And somehow it seems to me that guys with their old friends don’t get the recharging, spirit-lifting energy that women get from being with their old friends. Which is one of the reasons it’s good to be a girl–it’s like the reward for putting up with PMS. Lovely post; what a testament to your friendships!
I’m a little dissapointed that you don’t live in a Martha Stewart set-like appartment. But then again that makes two of us…
I shed a little tear after reading this….. Mostly about the absence of the stripper though….
Twitter: mommanech
November 15, 2011 at 8:28 am
I love this post. Girlfriends are the elixir of life. Cheers to your amazing weekend!
Yes, yes, yes. I get it. So glad you had the wonderfulness.
Old friends just make everything so easy. No getting to know each other or self censoring. They know you, already love you and you can pick up where you left off. Love that!! Glad you had such a great weekend!
Twitter: annsrants
November 15, 2011 at 10:15 am
One of my dearest friends and I were just talking about how our female friends have only become more important, and how we can love our friend in a way we cannot love our families–because they don’t need anything from us and depend on us in the same way.
My girls and I try to see each other every 6 months…….and we’ve stuck to it!
Here is our last trip to Atlanta in October. Please note, we are not 10 year boys, we just act like it. Rubber roach and wine, oh the fun!
http://brightlondonsky.blogspot.com/2011/10/night-night-sleep-tight.html
Twitter: houseofgirls3
November 15, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Living very far away from family and friends overseas for so long, I get it … and understand the importance of friendships more than most. I miss having friends nearby. The laughter. The closeness. The memories. In fact, I just wrote a post about finding a new community of friends …
I LOVE Sedona!!! I went to highschool in Flagstaff about 45 minutes away so as you can guess spent most of my time down in Sedona. In fact one of the hardest things about leaving Arizona this year was Sedona…..So glad you got to go visit there!
Twitter: MommysMartini
November 15, 2011 at 8:38 pm
This makes me feel all tuggy-at-my-heartstrings-y because my very closest and dearest friends live in Atlanta, Boston and Chicago, while I am in Michigan. I have friends here, but not ones who planned prom dresses with me or coached me through those college-boyfriend blues or knew *instantly* what it meant to me to be torn between academia and mothering. These weekends are precious and magical — and while, sure, some less fun ones may be in store far far down the line, the beauty of these weekends is that you can get together with girlfriends and talk and laugh as if is has been precisely no time at all since you last saw each other. Which, if you see them only three days/year should put you at about 200 more years of weekends like this before anyone even begins to have a wrinkle. Priceless.
Yes, what a weekend it was. Thank you for the lovely words. Let’s do it again soon. I might just start a log to be linkable.
Love,
Anna