There has been a major influx of chick flicks on our TV as of late. Around the fifth one this week I started to wonder why there was a sudden rise in this genre. Then it hit me…
I went to a girl’s weekend.
This particular girls weekend caused a heartache that can ONLY be cured by hours of happy endings. Let me explain…
My mom’s sister would host a girl’s weekend in Michigan every year. My mom and a couple of her girlfriends would spend the week before gathering their supplies for their road trip and I could feel the excitement brew and brew.
While they were gone on their adventure I would sit at home imagining what it would be like. I had been on many road trips prior and they were always rushed. We didn’t get a chance to enjoy the road. We didn’t get to stop whenever we wanted and just enjoy. But their girls’ weekend I was sure it would be FULL of girl talk and coffee stops all while seeing the countryside!
I could not WAIT until I was old enough and allowed to attend.
Before I was old enough those girls weekends ended.
About a decade later my parents bought a camper and some lake land and the tradition my Aunt had started was picked up by my mom. Although the road trip didn’t exist the weekend did and I WASN’T invited…
My mother and I don’t have the best relationship but I was over 30 and isn’t that old enough to be included?
Fast forward a few years. As fate would have it I come across this event held in California. It’s called the Bliss project and it is hosted by a fitness model Lori Harder. I. Wanted. To. Go. SO. Bad. being in California for a week with little boys at home didn’t seem financially feasible or at all ok with my husband. When it came to Chicago, well I took that as a sign that I NEEDED to go!
I bought my ticket and begged a couple of friends to go. I was FINALLY having my own girls weekend and I could NOT wait! Leading up to the event we were sent emails with the event details. Included in one of the emails was Fierce Forward. I started looking at her website and saw that FF is all about living with intention and empowering women, I became hooked ever since. My friends and I talked continuously making the adventure even more desirable by the time it actually came I didn’t think I could contain myself!
We left mid morning and we weren’t rushed at all, we stopped when we wanted, which was often and a trip that should have taken 5 hours ended up taking 9…
There was some unneeded drama along the way. During one of the many stops one of our gals decided to cause a big relationship breakup scene with her already rocky boyfriend. That wasn’t exactly what we were anticipating, especially since the rest of the way we had to continue to hear about it.
The first thing I did at the event was buy armor. The rest of the event my friends and I spent it separated in groups working on our personal growth and boy did our eyes open and we grew.
The ride home was not so great. The drama filled girlfriend talked the ENTIRE way home, it was just boring when conversation isn’t involved.
Afterward I became part of the FF tribe and started going to the meetups. Finally I felt like I had found my place. Like minded people all together, it was amazing! The best thing about the girls weekends Fierce Forward style is we could get together, have a great time and go home ready to kill it at life! Inspiration was everywhere and after a couple of drinks and real talk it seemed that was exactly what I had been missing my entire life.
Those girls weekends became my norm. What I looked forward to. Great conversations, maybe some drinks, some unforgettable memories and full of LAUGHS.
* * *
A great friend of mine was getting married this summer and she had her bachelorette party as a girls weekend. It was exactly the weekend I hoped for my entire life. My friend and I road-tripped to it, got there to an excited bunch of gals, had some drinks, played some games and laughed until the wee morning hours.
Even the next night, when we took to the bars it was still amazing. Some of the girls got a little friendly with some of the guys but there were game wardens that kicked the rude guys off the property they followed us to.
When my friend and I were invited to another girls weekend later that summer, with the same girls we couldn’t turn the chance down. We had had TOO much fun and wanted to relive it for as long as we could.
This time, it was a further road trip. It was also later on in the summer and included a pontoon rental and floaties on a perfectly clear lake. I hate to say it, but this particular trip was exactly the trip that the husbands think we go on. The one where the wives play too hard and even though they wear their rings they often forget that they are married and don’t act like it. Not all of us, but some of us.
I get it. Real life is hard sometimes. You NEED an escape where you don’t have responsibilities or 100 people asking you for things every second of the day but the trip left me heart-broken.
For years I’ve been working on my husbands assumptions of girls weekends and I had just been on the exact one he pictures. Although I was innocent, I was guilty by association; at least thats how it felt. As I work through this “hang over of guilt” by watching endless chick flicks I can’t help but hope future girls weekends are more like how I envision them instead of how my husband envisions them.
Much Love and Peace,
Jes xoxo