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Wow, so, this is a topic I’ve wanted to write about FOREVER. I think there’s a book in here somewhere, but for now, a blog post. With more posts on this topic to come, I’m sure!

This post is on one of my favorite topics: MY GIRLS!!!! The deeply spiritual, wonderfully connected, wisdom-filled crazy circle of female friendships that so many of us nurture throughout our lives.

I have the most powerful pack of women in my life. Look at those crazy girls in those pictures above. Aren’t they BEAUTIFUL!?!? Every day, I think about how LUCKY and BLESSED I am to have these incredible women to lean on and love. We’ve been friends for more than 30 years, most of us. My female friends have not just served me their fantastic friendships, doled out daily/weekly/monthly/yearly/decade-ly (not sure that’s a word) with kindness, grace, goodness, and selflessness. Some of them have even saved me. You know who you are, and you know what I’m talking about. When you’ve lost a dream, you rely on others to build you up and bring you back. And that’s just what they did.

My girls have my back. They elevate me to the highest person I can be, even when I don’t feel like it or don’t think I can do it. This website is undeniable evidence of that; they have been telling me for YEARS to channel my creative writer self into something tangible that touches others. Something besides the poems I have written for so many of them on the day that their first child was born, or on their wedding day, or on the day they lost loved ones to disease and to sudden tragic death. Something besides the personal essays I helped some of them craft–essays that helped them get into med school, and law school, and grad school.

“Use your beautiful words, and publish a book, Kath!” they said. They say it to me still.

“Write a book!” they said to me in high school and college.

“WHY haven’t you written a book yet?” they said, years and decades later. And sometimes, after reading what I wrote, all they could say was, “Wow.”

And I can say is, “Thanks.”

So, someday, a book. Today, a blog.

Getting back to the female friendship thing, I firmly believe that my efforts, over the years, to sustain my amazing, enduring, “been-through-everything together” friendships with such wonderful women have allowed me to become this self that I inhabit today. I have unearthed this really, really NICE inner being–and it’s because of them! I have brought balance to my life as a working mom, allowing myself the time to get away from it all, to spend quality time with my friends, be it our yearly Spa Weekend in Hershey at the Chocolate Spa or our yearly Florida getaway in that beautiful condo on the beach.

I value my female friendships literally as much as I value my family, my marriage, my son, and myself. And I don’t think it’s selfish or self-elevating to say that. Not one bit. As women, we shouldn’t have to ask permission or forgiveness to spend time with our friends, away from spouse and children and work and house, for a few well-deserved days of decadence and self-indulgence. We shouldn’t have to feel guilty for being away from the little people we dote over daily–they know beyond the deepest doubt that WE LOVE THEM–and that our making the time to get away from our kiddos and be with our girls is one way of absolutely showing that love. Maybe what they don’t know (and we hope that they’ll someday realize) is that, when we return, we are filled up and chilled down and that much more able to be such, such better moms, aunts, sisters, daughters, spouses, and friends.

And all it took was a few days away together with our girls–and a few bottles (ahemcases) of wine. And chocolate! And CHEESE! And laughter! And fire pits. Manis and pedis. Massages. Oversized rockers. Dainty cups of tea. The friendship overflows on these weekends. It just OVERFLOWS and fills up my heart and my world.

So, we’re better off, having carved out this much-anticipated time in our schedules, year after year after year. And why are we better? All because we take the time–we MAKE the time–to be together. It’s that important.

OK, so it’s important, and we’re better. But, is it easy to plan? HELL, no, it’s not easy. But we still do it! I’ll tell you what our planning is like. Our plans start every year in January (thanks to Eileen the Spreadsheet Queen–and the cog in our wheel of friendship!). Our plans involve coordinating approximately 24 adults’ busy schedules. Our plans involve e-mails and texts and Facebook messages that travel around the country, sometimes around the world (depending on where any one of us is at any given point in time). We plan our annual girls’ weekend MONTHS in advance, in a focused, hilarious, family-free way that often gets us kicked out of The Quiet Room at the Hotel Hershey.

And yes, that’s a separate story. I’ll share it sometime.

So, fellow female friendship warriors, I challenge you: GO! Be with your girls. Take the time! MAKE the time! STOP FEELING GUILTY. Don’t put it off! Spend the extra money. Take the extra time. You just never know how long you have.

I for one hope that I have many, many more years of laughing until my side is ready to split open–laughing with my glorious girls. They have my back. They are my world. For them, I will always take the time. I will always MAKE the time.

Take the time. Make the time. IT MATTERS.

 

It’s a small word, with a big meaning. I will never forget watching Lin-Manuel Miranda (the brain and heart behind the Broadway hit, “Hamilton”) say, upon accepting his award, “Love is love is love is love is…LOVE.” My heart was ready to leap out of my chest, his words were that powerful and affirming to me. I like to hope that he woke up the world on that day, with a short but powerful poem that maybe, just maybe, loosened away some of the foundation behind so much of the firmly held discriminatory beliefs in our society.

L.O.V.E. It’s really that simple, people.

Love is turning on the television and watching the media cover a POSITIVE news story that is both heartwarming and uplifting, that doesn’t contain the words “Trump” or “terror” or “too soon.” Maybe someday, we’ll start seeing that again.

Love, though, is never too soon. Sometimes it’s messy and marvelous all at the same time. Sometimes it hurts, because, when we love so much, that’s just what happens. It’s the risk we take; we put our hearts out there and say, “OK, I’m making myself vulnerable, and I’m OK with it. I know that this person who I love will someday not be here, next to me. And I’m willing to take that risk, because even just one day of having known and loved that person will have been worth all the absence and loss and pain I will have to endure upon the person’s passing.”

In the words of that awful 80s song, “Love hurts.” It also heals. Hopes. Hangs on. Hangs in.

Sometimes love is manifested as imperfection, but, really, all that love ever is, is perfection. Who are WE (imperfection-filled humans that we are) to say that we know what perfection looks like? Maybe we think it’s imperfection when it’s really quite the opposite. Love, in all its messiness, is absolute, stunning, perfectly choreographed PERFECTION.

For me, one definition of LOVE is a warm dog curled up in the space behind your knees, snoring, as you read Your Favorite Book and watch your husband’s glasses tilt ever forward onto the tip of his nose as he dives into that scintillating scientific journal article. Boring but beautiful. Leading a life of quiet but NOT of desperation.

Love is the silly grin of my child in the photo below, perfectly poised and peering between the “O” and the “V” (the center of my heart, after all!!!!) and enjoying a fun day watching that historic train engine chuff-chuff-chuff into the Manassas train yard. Throngs of people were there. And so were we.

So were we.

SHOW UP in your life. Enjoy it. Stop planning, stop looking backward, for just a few breaths. Enjoy now. Enjoy it.

Every. Single. Delicious. Minute.

Love is never too late.