It’s Monday morning. Summer appears to be over. School starts tomorrow.
Emma is already up and at ’em riding her horse with my dad. I’m organizing and filing bills. Lucas is watching something on television. John is picking up his daughters to come hang out at the house …
It’s nothing special and yet it is. It’s the last day before all the activities and schedules of fall really begin.
It’s been a wonderful summer. The end and the beginning.
This weekend we hosted a camp out with some friends. And when I say friends, I really mean friends. I’ve known these women for more than twenty years. We used to get together every single Tuesday night and watch movies, drink wine, and eat really good junk food. We even did Christmas gift exchanges. I looked forward to Tuesday nights for over seven years. My kids used to sneak out of their beds to peak around the corner and see what we were always laughing about … We laughed a lot. We talked about birthing babies, we set goals together, we complained about life, we cried together, at times we sat in silence and grieved with each other … and over the years, we watched one another grow into women … They’re the most special.
We’re all so different and yet, we are bonded. As I reflected on our friendships, it occurred to me, that we are bonded by love. We love each other. Just as we are. (To quote Mark Darcy.) And that kind of love is such a great gift. There’s a restful ease that comes upon me when I’m with the Tuesday night girls. A kind of love that is not hard-earned or even hard-suffered. It’s simply there. I know I can count on it. When I told them I got married and didn’t invite them (I didn’t invite anyone, save family) … they didn’t bat an eye. They just said, “It’ll be nice to celebrate with you when you’re ready.”
That kind of love, the sort of love that doesn’t demand its own way, is a love that I long to extend to more people. A kind of love I have grown to treasure and appreciate in whole new ways.
Anyways, this weekend we got together with all the kids, a brand new baby who is more precious than gold, and the dear, sweet husbands. We hung out in my yard and on my deck and in the kitchen. We swam and paddle-boated, and sailed. It was lovely. Absolutely lovely.
It also seems a very fitting end of the summer.
I go forward into something new. Something unexpected and beautiful. But not altogether new. My friends from before are ever with me. And I with them.
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It was also the first time in years that I did a big social event without drinking any alcohol. Honestly, it was incredible to be alcohol free and utterly present with everyone. Nothing numbing, nothing that made me sluggish or tired, nothing that enhanced my ability to carry on a conversation or say more than I should have said.
I was just me.
It was good to be me.
There were a couple of moments when I ached for a glass of red wine, but when that happened I took a deep breath and decided to engage in whatever conversation I was having with more fortitude and chose to be present with the person I was talking to, and in that way I made my way through.
I’ll continue to write about my Dry September.
I’m also trying to decide what to write about in a new series on this blog. I mentioned a few ideas in my last post. If anyone has a suggestion, I’d love to hear it.
More soon, and Much Love…
Tina
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