As You Were

I just spent four days with five of the most spectacularly insane women I know. It took us 14 years to plan and execute our first legitimate girls weekend. When we arrived at our destination, it had been anywhere between eight days and eight years since any two of us had seen each other. I will refer to our location vaguely throughout in order to protect the innocent. In addition, no names will be used. Several of us have families and there is a strong desire for that not to change.

Every one of us had to fly to our destination and coordinating that was an ordeal and a half in itself. We had agreed on dates roughly a year prior to the trip but even so, when it came time to purchase our tickets, every one of us was hesitant to be the first to commit. Finally, the ball got rolling and it turned out that three of us would arrive around noon with the remaining three moseying in at 7PM. What to do for seven hours?

Initiate Mission: Shenanigans.

Obviously, with that much time on your hands and two best friends at your side, you Uber to a beachside bar (that’s as much of a clue to our location as you will get – beachside), befriend the live band and enjoy the scenery until the rest of your party arrives to pick you up. You get in a few key requests with the singing duo before the tatted up, ZZ-top bearded, Harley riders break into a Jack Johnson tune and you find yourself instantly sobered. Now, I like Jack Johnson, actually I love Jack Johnson, especially at the beach, with a Corona in hand, sitting in a circle with my friends (the circle is crucial), but a dude named “Wolf” should not ever utter the words “brushfire fairytales” in my opinion. But who am I to judge? A wise young lady once said to me “don’t judge … enjoy.” So I enjoyed. I enjoyed Jack, I enjoyed my beverage, the fantastic company, the weather, the beautiful sunset and shortly I would enjoy three more travelers.

When the second wave arrived, we spent a short time catching up while probably annoying every other patron in the vicinity. If only they had known and subscribed to our motto that “we don’t get drunk, we get awesome,” they would have had more appreciation for what was happening in our little corner of the world. We responsibly drank water in between other beverages, we did ‘bar to shoreline’ sprints to keep us active. Also, the races determined who took care of the next round. Being the shortest of the crew with the shortest legs, didn’t really work out very well for me. Since we did have another hour to drive to our final destination, and considering one of us had to drive that hour (no drinking & driving ever!), much to the delight of the rest of the beautifully located Tiki Bar, the sextuplets did not spend too much time reminiscing there.

As we loaded into our chariot to be whisked away to our villa, we looked around again at the fantastic friends that we had made about 18 years ago and realized how excited we were to be enjoying these days together. Yes, we were missing a few key players but the half dozen of us would have enough fun for the absentees, for sure. We stepped into the portal that was our rented red minivan and so began four days of college reunion type hijinks.

While we were generally well-behaved mid-30 year old women, I feel it’s still necessary to “yada yada” many details. And not for the fun reasons, but because most of our stories will have the obligatory “guess you had to be there” ending. Things that would be hilarious to the six of us would have people wondering “what was it about this girl’s writing that I liked so much?”

For our last meal of the trip on Saturday night, we were wisely placed in a “back room.” There wasn’t much drinking but lots of loud laughing, a little bit of food-fightery (would have been more if that triple chocolate cake wasn’t too delicious to throw) and some very skillful water-fountainesque spitting by the lovely lady seated across from me. I think we took it too far when one of us threatened to side-kick a lovely native bird off the dock railing, complete with demonstration of the best strategy for said side-kick. In a skirt. Which obviously had to be pulled waist high to get the most force and velocity out of the kick. We left shortly after that and found that the lights were swiftly turned off as the last one of us crossed the threshold. Well, excuuuuse us!

We successfully made it through the weekend with only minor scrapes & bruises: a cut toe courtesy of a sand dollar, a case of plantar fasciitis acting up while sprinting into the ocean, a small finger cut a la opening a can of beer. No arrests, no crying, no vomiting, no sleeping past 9 am, very impressive. I’m never not blown away by the strength and resiliency of these women.

When I was heading to the airport to leave for this trip, I didn’t think that what was about to happen was suitable for public consumption. And some was not, that’s why this isn’t 48 pages long. Then, as I was sitting by the pool, I felt like I could write a post about how much I love my friends. And then one of them came over and farted on my lap. Scrap that idea. Next I thought that I would write a piece about how I learned something about myself and how much we’ve grown as women. That didn’t feel right either, see explanation above.

So I decided that the moral of the story and the point of this trip was nothing other than a few days in the sun with the very people that have been my friends through the last 18 years. The ladies that never had to do anything to become my best friends but share my sense of humor, participate in food fights with me, throw me in pools and share crazy stories. We are single, married, divorced, childless, with kids, unemployed, entrepreneurs, stay at home moms, located all over the continent, but we always appreciate each other.

And we also appreciate Tequila.