From my eyes…

What are you doing for Halloween?

Our Mexico trip was fabulous! And it couldn’t have come at a more needed time. The weekend prior, we all had attended a memorial service and helped one our Ya-yas celebrate her mother’s life. It was a somber weekend. Full of emotion. It was hard not to feel exhausted with the ups and downs that go along with a loved one passing. So, like I said the weekend get away to the beach was just perfect.
I’m really glad everyone still went. I wasn’t sure if my friend was going to stay home for some alone time, but she came along knowing that is what her mom would have wanted her to do.
We left on Thursday morning and stayed until Sunday morning. The weekend was full of mindless fun, beer, margaritas, amazing food, swimming in the ocean, laying in the sun, playing in tidepools and general fun.
It felt really amazing to spend a large quantity of time with my friends. It had been a long time since I got to do that.
Some of my favorite moments of the weekend included:
~  Drunk Matt, playing Catch Phrase and when we thought he was singing karaoke
~  Mexico Jason, including “It’s not gonna come up this far” in reference to the tide as we all settled into the sand for some sun…only to end up drenched from the water actually coming up that high. HA!
~  Not feeling like I need to help Mike fit in with my friends.
~  Just being relaxed and chatty with my best friends.
~  The food, thought the heartburn was off the charts, the fabulous meals everyone prepared were too good to exercise portion control.
~  Tide pools with Jason, who knows a great deal about salt water life and was able to point out about a million things that I never would have even seen or noticed. It was great and I felt like a kid.
~ Our open air jeep ride around Puerto Penasco with the wind and sand blasting our faces.
~ All of us swimming in the ocean together, even those who rarely are seen in the sun much less the ocean. It was neat that we were all out there together.
~ Staring at the ocean in the chilly morning. Our condo was directly on the beach.
~ The crazy hurricane inspired waves that were so mesmorizing.

Some pictures of our weekend can be found here.

There have been a few times in the past 5 years that make me pause and reflect. And the thought that always goes through my mind in these few instances is “oh, this must be what they meant by growing up”. And often, I’m a little sad when I realize that. You know the kind of sad I’m talking about, that small hole you’ve felt ever since you discovered Santa was only real in spirit. Kind of like a piece of innocence was taken away.
A few weeks ago, I went through the biggest “growing up” experience to date. A very close friend of mine, a sister since I was 11, lost her mom. It’s been two weeks and I’m still teary-eyed typing this.
I’ve had death in my life. A lot of it actually. I feel like I grew up going to funerals and am an old hand at etiquette and attire. But this was just so different.
To start, I am in IL. My friend is in AZ. And while my other girl friends arewith her and her amazing husband was by her side the entire time, it just wasn’t the same when I had to text message, email, or call. I couldn’t just hug her or be there. I carried my phone with me everywhere the last week Judy was alive. Even sitting on the couch in the evening, my phone was in hand waiting for some connection to my friends and an update on my friend’s mom.
You can imagine that my longing to be near Amanda and my other girl friends only intensified that Monday night when the phone call came that Judy was gone.
I just kept thinking “I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this. We are too young to have to do this”.
In reality, I think I would have felt that no matter my age. But I’m just having a hard time being faced with some many things all at once because of this - a friend in such pain and I can’t bear some of it for her, for the first time really feeling the physical distance from my friends and family, being forced to think about other people (my parents, my closest friends, family) passing, and missing a wonderful woman who did so many great things for people. It’s just too much. And sadly, it’s unavoidable.
I guess this is what they meant by growing up.