Last year for my oldest best friend’s 40th birthday, she came down to Ojai to visit me. Ojai, the land that all the LA stars love to invade for weekends of spas, wine tastings, healing, and retreats.
But it wasn’t that kind of trip.
In fact, as we walked down the street, I teased her, “Oh let’s stop here and take a selfie in front of this spa… caption it like… ‘Forty and Fabulous #thisis40 #ojaiweekend #girlstrip’. No one will ever know that really, we are just walking down the street from my house to the skatepark with three kids after having a macaroni and cheese lunch.” And that is what we were doing. Her son ate it on a scooter 20 seconds later due to an unfortunate crack in the sidewalk. But it was okay because we were together, dragging scooters and comforting kids.
Vegas, Baby!
This summer, I took a trip to Las Vegas and when everyone excitedly asked my plans for the trip, I admitted, “Oh, not that kind of Vegas trip.” This is the kind where my college best friend and I sit on her couch and eat ice cream and make the kids watch cult classic 90s movies that we recite for them for several days. And there, as I sat on her couch, a Facebook memory popped up on my page reminding me that 8 years ago that same day, I had been similarly at her house, taking a photo of my son (a toddler then) helping bathe her daughter who was just a tiny baby at the time.,
We SHOULD Do a Girls’ Trip!
As we have grown into moms, we often have moved or have left our older friendships neglected in the business of life. We text and call when we rarely can, saying, “We should do a girls trip!” and “maybe we can get away to Palm Springs after ____” and insert time or other obstacles that are constant in this life:
-after work calms down
-after the kids are a little older and can be left with someone
-after I get that bonus
-after I find someone who can watch the kids… and the list goes on. Motherhood is mundane, yes, but with your best friend, it’s better.
Make The Plan
Don’t wait until your kids are grown to get together with your friends somewhere.
Don’t feel like you can’t bring your kids, or you have to bring spouses.
Don’t feel like you need to travel or stay somewhere nice and blow your budget if that is an obstacle for one or both of you.
Don’t feel like you will need to be a certain weight or look a certain way for the “girls trip photos”.
Don’t even feel like you need to take so much time off! So many people have remote work capability, you don’t even need much time off. I drove to Vegas on the weekend, took half a day off on Tuesday, but I spent most of Monday and Wednesday in plenty of hours of Zoom meetings and on my laptop during our last trip.
But I also had several lunches with my bestie, several dinners with my bestie, told work stories with my bestie on breaks and watched terrible tv and ate ice cream every night. Would I rather have had the whole time off? Sure, but if that was the case I was waiting for, I wouldn’t have gone at all and another year would pass, not seeing one of my favorite people in the world, and her kids not even remembering my name.
Insta-Worthless
Girls’ trips (for me at least) aren’t just about being Instaworthy and showing the world how great you and your girlfriends still look as you sip cocktails somewhere exotic. I mean if they can be, more power to you, but I’m not in that place.
It Can Be for the Whole Family
Girls’ trips are about the acceptance and grittiness of life that only a BFF can understand. Sharing struggles, sharing laughs, and getting to know each other’s kids. Plus, forcing your kids to get to know each other too, so this whole friendship can last longer than just one lifetime.
Girls’ trips can be about listening to your best friend’s husband’s work stories as he makes coffee, and she rolls her eyes in the background because she is tired of hearing them. They can even be about spending some time with your BFF’s parents, if you go that far back. My college bestie’s dad playing baseball with both of our sons made me tear up! My oldest bestie’s mom always gets a hug from both me and my son (who calls her Bubbie too), before I even enter her door since she lives in the front unit.
Maybe your partners become best friends too! Maybe they don’t. Don’t let that stop you.
Girls’ trips sometimes aren’t even trips but often, with my oldest BFF, passing through on my way somewhere else and saying, “hey I have like an hour and then I have to keep driving, but you are on my way, so I’m coming… oh… you think you might be starting to go into labor? Okay, is it early? Great, I’ll be there and we’ll time some contractions and see when you need to really go.”
True story, I sat on my best friend’s lawn with her while she was thinking about going into labor. Any moment I get, I’ll take it.
Plenty of Lie Down Space
I grew up sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor every night. So did my sisters and parents. We didn’t have beds in our 400 square foot house with 6 people. My family would always welcome everyone though! “Plenty of lie-down space,” I remember my father would say. Quite literally, there was space to lie down and something to cover you, so you were in. I remember spending a very cold night on a family friend’s deck under the stars in a sleeping bag. We make it work.
Even work BFFs, BFFs that don’t have kids to join in the fray, and BFF’s whose kids have grown and flown all have happily come to sleep in my son’s bunk bed (the bottom is a full, so it’s like.. fancy) while he takes the couch and watches cringy rom-coms with us. Look, I can’t wait to have an actual “guest” bedroom to offer those I love the most, but I can’t wait for that to happen to spend time with those that I love. And those that love me enough, don’t care!
Instagram-Worthless Trip
I’m equally happy to lounge poolside or have a spa day, but the reality of my life is that this is the exception, not the rule. And I want my friendships to be the rule. Messy, busy, humble moments together are more than enough for me, and my social media too! Yep I will take all the Instagram-worthless trips I can get!
