As the Hens Cackle

My husband teases me about my “moms’ night out, which he calls “cackling meet”. I’m usually made up as if on a date–some make-up and jeans that are (relatively) stain free. And I am on a date. With myself, with my friends. I get together every month or so with friends. Usually over dinner, during the week when our husbands get home from work to watch the kids, and not on weekends since those are reserved for family. It’s been sort of a ritual for over a decade now. These friends, women, mothers, and wives. We have children that are in the same age group–that was how we all met.

So in the midst of wine, often shared appetizers, always some dessert, we catch up. We talk about our husbands, the good and the bad. We share stories about the children, how incredibly challenging they can be. Always, always we talk about the husbands we complain about and how much we love them, and the children that drive us up the wall, and how our lives have been enriched because of them, and how we would never change a single thing (well, except maybe less stretch marks, more sleep, and maybe a few wrinkles and pounds less).

For a few hours, it’s nice.

Because support, understanding, a space where no judgment is always nice. In whatever form. In whatever aspect of your life. Whether it’s as a writer, a reader, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, cousin, lover, friend every body needs a group. A tribe. If there is anything I’ve learned in my several decades here on earth (I’m not saying exactly how many several is), is that we don’t walk our paths alone. Our struggles are not unique. And though we will all have struggles in one form or another, there are people out there traveling the same path as us, and there’s no reason to be alone. Find friends, nurture those friendships, and find acceptance within those relationships that make all the sometimes suckiness of life easier to bear, more joyful.