Old Friends and Spontaneity

Yesterday was a fabulous day. Old friends and spontaneity, the perfect elixir.

It was a beautiful day, and with my 4-year old in tow, I set out to meet some delicious old friends. You know the kind ... the free-flowing conversations so meaty and deep you can truly sink your heart, mind and teeth into them. And unlike our usual planned 'girl' get togethers, this one was completely spontaneous. I love spontaneity, and man do I miss the ability to act on it. Marriage, kids, responsibility, all the elements of adulthood that sometimes make spur of the moment engagements hard, if not impossible. Our get togethers are usually planned, and making the arrangments can be painstaking... Five to eight email exchanges among us just to verify which dates on the calendar are free for all of us. By the time the strand of emails come to a close, the date is usually so far off in the distance its months away. The process alone is the antithesis of spontaneity. But not this encounter. This time was perfect ... just meant to be, I guess.

And man was I tired, but I wasn't going to let lack of sleep stop me from spur of the moment fun. The night before, my 4-year old decided that wake up time was 4 AM, and that I needed to be her playmate. Ah, restful sleep, another quality of life luxury out the window with parenting. Tired as we were, we managed to trudge on through the next day, and I'm so glad we did because this tired mom needed some down and out girl time.

I think we all can agree that one thing universally female is the need to meet up with other women. Not just any women, but THE women who have helped shape us into the people we are today. THE women with whom you share your secrets, desires, and the you name it [insert answer here]. Nothing interferes with the need - there are no boundaries that cannot be overcome. If one of THE women in your life moves out of your zipcode, the connection stays strong, even if face to face encounters are few and far between. It just doesn't matter. Once that connecton is made, the bond lasts forever, and so does the need to converse with THAT woman.

So this past Sunday I got to spend some time with some of THE women in my life. Women I met in the Peace Corps, halfway across the globe. Now, ten plus years later, we live within 60 miles of one another, and for years we didn't even know it! None of us born where we live today, yet something brought each of us here... I guess it was just meant to be.