Girlfriends

You can always tell a real friend; when you've made a fool of yourself

she doesn't feel you've done a permanent job.

- Some random quote I read online beneath a Spanx ad.

Since moving to the suburbs, I miss my Super.  Since becoming an adult, I miss my friends .  The odds of Ramon (my super) ever coming over to change a lightbulb are slim.  But every once in a while, I get a night out with girlfriends. 

I have decided that it would be impossible to be a mother without girlfriends.  It takes a village?  Maybe.  It takes a few phenomenal women who know when to tell a joke and when to pour the wine?  Yes.

There is something that hovers above a table of girlfriends without agenda.  It's the scent of juicy gossip mixed with shared passions, admitted fears, spot-on advice, and belly laughter.  Lingering in the room of women on a night off, you can hear their muscles relax a little.  It sounds like the de-furrowing of eyebrows.  There is a collective, unspoken decision not to discuss the piles of laundry that are stacking up, the inbox full of email requiring immediate response, the tub upstairs still full of wet bath toys.  When you're with a group of gals who dig each other genuinely, it looks like summer camp grown up. 

That table of smart, capable, gorgeous, sassy ladies are able to change the scope of a day - a week - a month - simply by sitting down together.   

Our lives are so full.  Ambition and chores alone could fill a day.  Attention is divided at best.  We are a generation of women striving to make our mark just as soon as we make breakfast.  

Syncing calendars with girlfriends is like a giant game of Whack-A-Mole.  So when that rare Monday night pops up free across the board, I recommend you grab it.  Because those ladies don't need anything from you.  Their faces are washed, you don't have to make their lunch for the morning, they don't require you to stay late at the office or expect your brows to be plucked.  There is a mutual understanding amongst women with a couple precious hours to devote to unplugged face time. 

"Let's get a little drunk and laugh.  And if anyone needs to cry, go for it.  There are brownies over there." 

And then go home (a little too late) with a spring in your step.  When you get there, take out the trash, (trust me, your super isn't coming) and then pencil in the next date.  No, you know what.  Put it in pen.