Girls Weekends Are Important. They Remind You How FUN You Are.

Contrary to what my husband may say, I am actually still fun. I am pretty sure that every wife hears “Remember when you were fun.” To which I typically respond “Remember when I cared about what you thought.” But, 15 years (six with no sleep) and three kids later, I am still a good freaking time.

I recently went away for a girls weekend and had the time of my life and the craziest thing is as the weekend got closer I considered backing out. Why? Because going outside my comfort zone of  every day life, despite complaining about it all the time, scares the crap out of me.

When you work five days a week, the only two days you have to get anything and everything done is on the weekends. So when you are invited to any event that may take you away from getting life responsibilities done it is scary. And unless you can afford to have someone on call that is willing to get your shit done, then it all falls on you. When would you be able to fit it in? And when you cannot get it done on the weekend then that just means your next week is going to be even more busy, which already sounds exhausting.

You know what I am talking about. When that email or text message comes in saying “What are you doing the weekend of October 12th? You want to go to wine country for a girls trip?” The first thing you do is think about the million things you have to do on that weekend. Grocery shop, probably have to do some school clothes shopping because the seasons are changing and child #1 has no clothes for colder weather while child #2 has two closets full since he/she has all of child #1s old clothes, catch up on laundry, read all the school papers that came home throughout the week because you cannot keep up with them during the week, realize the school papers sent home during the week explained that SPIRIT week would be the following week and you will have to run out to buy everything needed on the list x2 because you missed the school apparel order sheet, try to write a blog post and finally ensure your husband thinks you are “fun”(the quotes around fun means have sex). And that is just what you can accomplish on Saturday. Then throw in sports and activities and the 48 hours you have are gone in a blink. Doesn’t that all sound like fun?

So you finally respond YES to the text message or email four days later after discussing it with your husband, mother, kids, mother-in-law, girls at work and the magic 8 ball. Panic sets in. You can barely get waxed once a month. How are you going to be able to fit this in? But you have committed, so you are going.

As the weekend gets closer you contemplate all the reasons you need to back out. Child #2 is sick. Child #1s last flag football game is on Sunday. Child #3 has her homecoming dance. Need to really grocery shop because there are only two loaves of bread for the week and not three. It is supposed to rain? All the excuses start to enter your mind as to why you could back out last-minute, so once again you consult  with your husband, mother, girls at work, moms at the bus stop and, again, the magic 8 ball to gauge on a scale of 1 to 10 how assholic would it be of you to just back out last-minute. Survey says, 10. You would suck if you backed out. So you go.

It is amazing what happens the minute you enter a situation where you know it is just you and your friends for the next few hours or days. All the worries and anxieties you had about what you could not get done vanish and you actually start thinking that you should’ve went away for three days instead of two. You start thinking that you need to at least get out with your friends once a week.

You get to just sit down and talk about adult things. Girl things. Mature things. Probably the most memorable and fun conversation I had with the group of girls I was away with revolved around whether to have a landing strip or not. Apparently the trend is to not, but what do we know.  Our lives are consumed with everyone else but OURSELVES. While the topic may seem off-color for a group of classy ladies, it was one of the funniest and honest conversations I have ever had, all while sipping flights of delicious wine. It was a moment where the conversation surrounded us as women and not us a mommies or wives. And even though the conversation lasted 20 minutes, it set the tone for the day and from that moment on it was nothing but fun, laughs and great memories and I got to do what I love doing, which is just being a goof ball and not taking myself too seriously. And when you are with your friends, guess what, they don’t take you too seriously either and they just let you be you and they think you are pretty fun. You get a break from always having to be “on” and it is such a great feeling to just take a break. It felt good to only have to worry about me for 24 hours and I returned home a happier and healthier (well not my liver) mommy and wife.

I came home that Sunday with a smile that is still on my face today. When I think back to some of the crazy things we did, I just can’t help but laugh and smile and hope that the next trip is planned sooner than later because this time when the email is sent there will be no hesitation in my response.  There will always be errands to run, school papers to read, sport obligations and work to do, but getting the opportunity to visit some great wineries while debating whether to remove it all or keep some are going to be few and far between so just say yes and go. Leave a To Do list for your husband and kids. Take the opportunity to make it all about you because if you don’t, who will?