Girls Weekend 2015

This weekend we picked back up with our Girls Weekend tradition. We started in 2006 at Brittney's surprise bachelorette party when Donna said that we should plan to get together every year for a weekend. 

The next year, we surprised Donna at the hospital while she was doing her cancer treatments. Our originally planned Girls Weekend that year was spent together at her funeral.

2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 we jumped around to various houses including Jess's house, the Bay House, and Liz's parents and her own house. 

2012 we got together the weekend of our 10-year high school reunion, which was weird for Jess because she didn't go to high school with us! Liz and I announced our pregnancies to the group together and I loved having couch time with her after the reunion to just relax and watch bad TV. 

2013 we didn't have an official weekend, but we did all see each other at Liz's funeral. 

For 2014, we started planning too late and ended up with this January. If we don't end up getting together another time this year- probably not- we will count this one for 2015 also. It was perfect and good enough to count for two years, in my opinion. 

We were all there the whole time- both nights- and 80% of the time was spent sitting on couches talking. Whit made a zucchini lasagna for Friday night, which we ate around 8pm when Rachel finally arrived. We stayed up until 2am on the couches, and continued our conversations in the various bedrooms until even later than that. 

Saturday we were finally all awake around 10am, got dressed, and went to Gloria's for lunch (my favorite), then got pedicures and were back home on the couches by 4pm. Where we stayed until around 8, when we had my orzo pasta salad/chicken breasts for dinner, and then moved back to the couches until midnight. 

Sunday we woke up fairly early because half of us had to get on the road first thing. Whit, Rachel and I kept the weekend going- Rachel and I went to Starbucks while Whit ran a few errands and then we all had lunch at Red Robin before heading home. Also, I got my car deep cleaned on the way home!

It was just such an easy weekend. I don't even think I could recount what topics we covered- everything from our new families, to our parents, high school people we knew, things we remember from middle school, of course Liz and Donna, pregnancy (we even had a new pregnancy announcement!), and sex. Even when I brought up the topic of circumcision and I was the only one with a different opinion, I loved hearing what everyone had to say!

We are all very different but we have key things in common with each other that keeps us together, not just the deaths of two of our girls. Parenting is a huge common denominator now. Lauren and Britt each have 3 kids and they were the most tired of anyone, and also the most positive/easygoing about raising kids and dealing with all their 'stuff'. Brittney and Rachel are similar in their marriages, Lauren and I share this hippie thing/interest in tattoos, Jess and Rachel and I have lots of things in common, including enjoying a stiff drink sometimes- and our college experiences were the most similar. Lauren and Whitney have similar stories about past relationships. I could keep going on this, but while we have so many things in common, we probably all feel like the odd man out sometimes. 

This weekend, I felt like I was in a glass box because of my most recent miscarriage, giving me an equal number of pregnancies as Brittney and Lauren, but only one child to show for it. I'm the only one with any miscarriages and nobody knows what to do about it. The most common thing I hear is, "I don't understand what you are feeling" and "I don't know what to say" (sometimes preceded by or followed by silence). This is definitely NOT to say that my close girlfriends only responded this way, just a generalization on most people. 

If it had come up naturally, I would have loved to explain what it feels like, but it just didn't. I'm comfortable talking about it, but other people are not. Rachel's response to that was that it doesn't matter what everyone else thinks- and I agree- but seeing the looks on everyone's faces is so uncomfortable for me. I wish I had been more brave and just interrupted whatever conversation we were having with this topic. I think I might reach out individually instead because the responses I've gotten just from my group of girlfriends has been so different and I would love to give feedback on how each of them affected my experience- mostly positively. 

I felt so weird talking about being pregnant because it was like a reminder to everyone that I've been dealing with some painful stuff for the past couple of years. Near the end of the weekend, I think it got easier because I just did it- I talked about the nausea, the messy house, the worry/anxiety of this most recent pregnancy, and the loveliness and how great I felt with the pregnancy before. Part of me felt weird talking about this most recent one because it didn't work out and also none of my friends knew about it until it was over. I wish they had known the whole time- but when I was in it, I didn't want anyone to know. What a catch-22. 

The bottom line is that everyone has a different perspective on hard situations and generally want to be supportive, but sometimes it comes out as nothing/completely blowing it off, or over the top/rambling suggestions, or somewhere in the middle. (Again, not just talking about my girlfriends here). 

What I wanted to hear is "I'm so sorry for your loss", what I wanted to see was flowers delivered so I had something pretty to look at- I did get one bouquet, and I felt most supported by the 3 friends who brought dinner over or had it delivered so I didn't have to worry about one more thing. I support myself by writing and allowing emotions to come up when they want to instead of pushing them down like I did last time. 

My favorite long distance hug was a text Lauren sent with a picture of her sushi dinner the same night we found out and were having our own sushi dinner- the note said something about celebrating the future of the Bell family. That was exactly what I needed- someone to be with me and be hopeful in the moment.