This Is Major

It is Monday. And I am fresh back from a weekend away. Husband and I went to South Carolina with three of his friends from high school (groomsmen in our wedding) and their wives. We stayed in one of their lake houses.

I was a bit apprehensive about the weekend because I wasn't sure I would have fun without drinking. I knew that in many ways the weekend would be about drinking, about letting loose, about escape. I knew that these friends of ours would all be up for a bit of old school fun and revelry and I experienced a bit of anticipatory sadness that I would not participate in this collective booze binge.

But we went. And I was quick to joke about the fact that I would not be Miss Pinot Grigio but rather Madame O'Douls and there were questions, but they were thoughtful ones, and I had no problems answering them and this amazing thing happened. We just started talking, really talking, being real. There was none of the usual BS, none of the artifice. We went straight for the real stuff.

There were so many good conversations. Conversations about struggle, and change, and confusion. Conversations about life. Life with responsibility, with kids. Though I hadn't seen these friends in years and years, I felt close to them as we talked, wondering aloud and together, about life, about love, about all of it.

And it was fun. Real, wild, wonderful, utterly old school fun. There was that kind of laughter that rips your core to happy shreds. There was dancing in pajamas. There were lawn games and donuts and memories.

And I am home now. And I am happy. I am happy because something happened this weekend. I realized something. I realized that I can have fun, crazy college-esque fun without drinking. I realized that good people and good stories are really all you need to feel it - wild, and alive, and young, and free.

Even if I learn nothing else in the next ten months, this is worth it. To know that life can be, and will be, fun without pouring a glass of wine.

Major.