Getting Ready Time #30BrighterDays

In seventh grade I got my very popular best friend Megan all to myself for trick-or-treating. I dressed as JR from Dallas wearing one of my step-dad’s sport coats, and she dressed as Sue Ellen wearing a flouncy prairie dress out of the back of my closet that someone must’ve worn in a 1970s wedding party.

We danced along the rainy streets, with a silly walk and a song about Megan’s splint. Megan had a splint because she nearly ran through a window, gashing her wrist during a middle school rendition of boys-chase-girls at a Halloween party the night before.

I still remember skipping from house to house singing about Megan and her splint OHHHHYou put yo awm (arm) in thew (there)… and you move it everywhew and you make it clean and tidy… like a wittow babies di-dy (bop bop).

We were delightfully bizarre children–even for 7th graders.

Typically we would’ve been a gaggle of girls not a duo. However, the social event of the season had already transpired. Megan still felt vulnerable with her wound, and probably welcomed a quiet night of candy collection sleepover with me. I felt so lucky.

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I spent a lot of my growing up pretending to like activities, people, and situations that I didn’t really enjoy. I tolerated beer parties, sipping one warm Grain Belt for the seeming decade-long evening, as my girlfriends paired up with boys and disappeared. I’d mumble around a fire with some beery jocks or burn-outs for seventy five years, until I could finally find my way home to my trundle bed (where I strongly would’ve preferred to stay, with my girlfriends, for the entire night).

My favorite part about going out was the getting ready; safety-pinning each other’s jeans, calling boys, burning our bangs into sausage-roll submission with Finesse and a curling iron, eating microwave burritos, and maybe practicing our splits–all at the same time.

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Girlfriend time remains one of the brightest lights of my life. One of my favorite parts of friendship in adulthood is that our time together could nearly always be described as “getting ready” time, with no adrenaline or hormone-fueled destination.

Even if we now use only our own eyeliner in the privacy of our own homes before meeting for drinks and appetizers at a bar, we’re still getting ready. We refuel one another with riotous laughter, held hardship, and rekindle the sparkle of the sometimes mischievous/always inspired glint in our eyes of shared pasts and loyal bonds. This brightness we can’t quite capture in our own reflection–a glimmer that helps keep our lights on inside, and prepares us for tomorrow’s labor and loving.

This post is part of #30BrighterDays to brighten each day of November