May 16, 2021/12:58 PM – The Tweet Heard ‘Round the Group Chat
Oddly enough, it was a tweet by author E. E. Holmes that would be the impetus. I had never heard of her before that. No shade. Paranormal fiction just isn’t my thing. But in 39 words – or less – {because do hyphenated words count as one or two words?}, E’s tweet moved us to get up off our wide behinds and do something we’d been talking about for years: a girls trip. And that, dear friends, is how a weekend of magnificent memories, marvelous muumuus, minimal mothering and midlife mumbo jumbo began.
May 16, 2021/4:49 PM – Reservation Pending
After 30 years and in less than four hours, we’d picked a date, decided on a city, perused a plethora of Airbnb accommodations, reserved our choice of lodging, and began viewing multitudes of muumuus. In fact, were it not for an excessively unnatural desire to sport muumuus and determine which of the four of us was most suited to represent as Rose, Blanche, Dorothy and Sophia – I am not certain the weekend would have come together. Accordingly, the first tip in the process… well, obviously – a good tweet. But there is more…
TIP: Be Like Nike and Just Do It
Stop thinking about it. Just make it happen.
TIP: Determine Your Why
Ours was a combination of gathering together and celebrating our 50 trips around the sun and relaxing and reminiscing and getting the beep away from the loud and needy people that reside in our homes. Feel free to modify this to fit your needs. But full disclosure… it was good enough to be my forever why. File it under self-care.
TIP: Establish a Pre-Trip Communication Command Center
We created our own personal Facebook page for the event. It was fun. And foolery. Visiting our little command center was incredibly easier than scrolling through our endless texts messages containing all kinds of juicy – but unrelated to the trip – content. Here we listed the places we would visit, engaged in meal planning {but is it really meal planning if you are only selecting restaurants because ain’t nooooobody tryna cook this weekend}, and listed a schedule of planned events {Note: trash television, eating leftovers and laying around the living room of an Airbnb do qualify as events and require planning}.
TIP: Decide on a Dress Code
Foundations required… or leave all that ish at home? Just so that no one feels underdressed, overdressed or generally out of order. Straight comfort for us on the girls trip; we let it all hang out. Muumuus and tees… and long boobies swinging in the breeze.
TIP: Consider Time for Activities of the Aging
Pre-planned naptime and potty breaks aren’t just for kids. Ask a 50-year-old bladder. I’m just sayin.
TIP: Calories Do Not Count on a Girls Trip
Keep a fridge full of easy, nutritious, grab and go foods on hand. Kidding. Eat whatever you want. Yeah. I said it. Calories will be burned off during chat sessions. If you need scientific evidence to support this statement… too bad. Don’t question it. Just call it magic and go with it. Thank me later.
TIP: Invite {BE} the Paparazzi
Or just bring a tripod… with a remote. Epic events deserve to be immortalized. So, take all the pics. Because there is no such thing as too many pics. There just isn’t. And don’t let anyone tell you any different.
TIP: None of the Aforementioned Crap Really Matters
Remember that thing about love – the one you learned when you are young and some trash dude broke your heart – but you are still too green and naïve to realize that the universe did you a favor – so you soothe your soul with pseudo-philosophical statements and maintain an overly optimistic belief – that you will one day be reunited in love forever? You know the one about… let it go fly all far away and do its thing and then if it comes back to you it’s yours and you can go ahead and get the matching tats? That… is what we walked away feeling. My peoples. We won.
We flew far away and then we came back together. Beats… we did not skip them. We squeezed memories, marriages, divorces, kids, aging and ill parents, losing parents, careers, retirements, successes, failures, accountability, bucket lists, investing, travel plans for the future, fears, regrets, wishes and wants, trash television, dinner on the lake, friendship, snow cones, pancakes, campus tours, birthday cake, gifts for our girls, leftover pasta, game night, lots of laughing and a few tears, the onset of midlife crisis, sistership, hundreds of pics and prayer into less than 48 hours. Heart just full.
The only thing that really mattered on this girls trip was the people we were with and our time well spent. We could have been wearing lime green corduroy overalls under teal blue tutus while sitting in half inflated inner tubes eating Vienna sausages and Ding Dongs flipping between the weather channel and Good Times reruns – and it still would have been the most glorious time. And we owe it all to E. E. Holmes. Author of paranormal fiction. I guess I might have to buy a book after all. I owe her big.
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