The Seven of Us

When I was in college I had six best friends.  I know that sounds all cheesy and sorority like (and it kind of was).  But the fact is, there was a group of seven of us that more or less spent four years together.  We lived together, we drank together, we traveled together, we grew up together.  Our senior year, we dressed up as the seven dwarfs for Halloween (I was Dopey).  

It wasn't like we all always got along perfectly and we all were equally close, but for a group of seven girls, we went through college surprisingly drama free.  We looked out for each other.  We were a team.  

Now having had children, I can't say my time at college was the best time in my life, but it was damn well near close.  I can't imagine having a better college experience.  Truly.  And in large part, it was because of those six girls.  

Thirteen years ago.

We've all kept in pretty good touch since graduation.  Some of us even lived together over the years.  And during what I like to call the "wedding circuit" (that five year period where every one you know and then some gets married), we saw each other all the time as we attended bachelorette parties, showers, and wedding receptions.  

But then life went on, and we all went our separate ways.  There was marriage, careers, and lots of kids (15 so far between the seven of us).  There was also divorce, separation, and setbacks.  Our visits got less frequent as life, and distance, got in the way.  And before I knew it, it had been several years since all seven of us had been reunited together, all at once.   

It had been since March of 2008, to be exact, when all seven of us were last together in the same room.  

Until this past weekend.  

It's not that we hadn't seen each other - we had, in all sorts of permutations and combinations, lots of times.  It's just that it seemed that someone always had to bail at the last minute for some reason or another.  Flight cost, or sick kid, or personal drama.  As last week approached, I wondered if we would actually do it....  Would everyone make it?  

We did.

Thirteen years later.  I think we look damn good, if you ask me!

And it was so nice.  

I find that at this stage in life, there is something so incredibly therapeutic and refreshing and relieving about being around people that knew you before your present life.  Before marriage and kids and titles and career and all of the serious stuff.  People that knew you when you were just you, and that was enough.  

It's hard to keep in touch with those people.  Really hard.  Because people move and people change, and time gets in the way.  I find that as I age, there are less and less of these people I can draw upon.  So when you have these people in your life, and when you can actually see these people, it is such a gift.  

And what a gift it was for all seven of us to be in a room together again.  

It's so funny how years have gone by, yet our dynamic of seven hasn't changed.  There's still the crazy one.  The cruise director one.  The down to earth one.  The girly one.  The sweeter than anyone you'll ever meet one.  The laid back one.  The dry sense of humor one.  When we all get together, we all play and feed off of each other the same way we did thirteen years ago.  It's as if we haven't grown up, which I suppose in some circumstances, can be a bad, unhealthy thing.  In this situation, however, it's just as it should be.  It's perfect.

We all went out to dinner on Saturday night. (I was the designated driver - must I always be pregnant for these get togethers?)  We laughed, we cried, we reminisced, we made new memories.  We woke up on Sunday morning and all returned to our respective lives, across the east coast and midwest.  

Who knows when we will all be together again.  But I hope it's soon.  Seeing these girls is good for the soul.  

There's simply nothing like old friends.