Yesterday was the bridal shower (excuse me - Co-Ed Bridal BBQ, because "shower" implies ladies and finger sandwiches and we had beer, Italian ice with vodka, pizza, and certainly no ladies) for one of my oldest and very best friends, Snikkers. She and three other girls comprise my "core four" of that group of friends with whom I'm still incredibly close. Three of us lived together at one point, but since college we have been all over the continental US. This summer, for the first time in 8 years, three of us are all in one time zone. And yesterday was the first time all four of us had been in the same room since 2004.
I'm the youngest of the four, the only blonde, and therefore look like the weird Swedish exchange student in photos. In 2001, three of us made an ill-fated beach trip that resulted in pierced eyebrows. We all saw each other through the awkward, difficult years of college which were sort of a mesh of Felicity, Girls Gone Wild, and Anne of Green Gables.
(Tell me you wouldn't want to see a movie with that as the concept.)
The BBQ was packed with Snikker's and her husband-to-be's friends, but at some point late in the afternoon the four of us managed to seclude ourselves away in a bedroom and somehow wound up all lying on the bed, whispering and giggling like a slumber party instead of four 30-year-old women (actually, one of us is 31, but who's counting?).
We bemoaned the choices we'd made in our younger years - in men, fashion, life, and hairstyles. We bemoaned the fact that we hadn't all been together in over eight years. We lay, legs all entwined, and heads resting on shoulders. And it was as though all of the thousands of miles we've traversed between us since college were removed. We were just there, four bodies lying on a bed, talking about our former selves.
What amazes me is how very much ourselves we still are.
We are still so very us in the way that our personalities are distinct and defined. And yet we are not the selves that we were at 19, 20, and 21. We are stronger, better, perhaps even more defined. We make no apologies for our selves anymore, and we've all found people who love who we are just for being those very selves. It's amazing to me how the baggage both falls off and stays on at the same time, honing us into better people who make better choices.
Especially fashion-wise. Those eyebrow rings...not cool.
As I drove home last night, I felt wrapped in this warm glow of love and acceptance, and the knowledge that we will always have what we have. We've had it for ten years. We may not be in the same room, the same state, even the same time zone or continent, but we're still together somehow. Even when everything else is changing.
I'm the youngest of the four, the only blonde, and therefore look like the weird Swedish exchange student in photos. In 2001, three of us made an ill-fated beach trip that resulted in pierced eyebrows. We all saw each other through the awkward, difficult years of college which were sort of a mesh of Felicity, Girls Gone Wild, and Anne of Green Gables.
(Tell me you wouldn't want to see a movie with that as the concept.)
The BBQ was packed with Snikker's and her husband-to-be's friends, but at some point late in the afternoon the four of us managed to seclude ourselves away in a bedroom and somehow wound up all lying on the bed, whispering and giggling like a slumber party instead of four 30-year-old women (actually, one of us is 31, but who's counting?).
We bemoaned the choices we'd made in our younger years - in men, fashion, life, and hairstyles. We bemoaned the fact that we hadn't all been together in over eight years. We lay, legs all entwined, and heads resting on shoulders. And it was as though all of the thousands of miles we've traversed between us since college were removed. We were just there, four bodies lying on a bed, talking about our former selves.
What amazes me is how very much ourselves we still are.
We are still so very us in the way that our personalities are distinct and defined. And yet we are not the selves that we were at 19, 20, and 21. We are stronger, better, perhaps even more defined. We make no apologies for our selves anymore, and we've all found people who love who we are just for being those very selves. It's amazing to me how the baggage both falls off and stays on at the same time, honing us into better people who make better choices.
Especially fashion-wise. Those eyebrow rings...not cool.
As I drove home last night, I felt wrapped in this warm glow of love and acceptance, and the knowledge that we will always have what we have. We've had it for ten years. We may not be in the same room, the same state, even the same time zone or continent, but we're still together somehow. Even when everything else is changing.
No comments:
Post a Comment