Life
Your friend group gets older but this sisterhood ritual stays the same.
Its the morning after Halloween.
Yesterdays chaos still clings to us, but we soldier on by ordering omelets and mugs of coffee.
I ask, How did we even end uptherelast night?
and the ritual begins.
We swap anecdotes like a deck of cards, recounting the conversations others might have missed.
The scandalous tidbits distract us from our pounding headaches.
Somehow, Lauren is here instead of at her 6 a.m. shift.
They could be rebranding.
This is how the morning-after debrief goes.
The atmosphere is only comparable to the best parts of summer camp.
Its a valuable thing, and its grown rarer as weve grown ourselves.
We were once pre-teens, delirious and giddy the morning after a sleepover.
In our early 20s, wed discuss the previous nightsbad Hinge dateswhile unfinished takeout lingered on the counter.
Everything else was just background noise.
We always had each other within reach.
We had an eternity at our disposal.
Now in our late 20s, life has taken each of us in different directions.
The last time we debriefed was on a girls trip.
I woke up in our Airbnb, realizing I was the last one to rise.
From a few rooms over, muffled voices blended together; laughs ricocheted through the walls.
I could hear only pieces, but I knew the debrief was going down.
I jumped out of bed, still wearing last nights makeup, not bothering to put in my contacts.
I was greeted with a cheerful chorus of, Finally!
Recognizing how rare moments like this were, I silently promised to never be late for our next one.
Now, were all together again for a wedding weekend in a quaint coastal town.
Did anyone see them talking last night?
For me, the real fun only starts once the party is over.
I see myself dragging the group to that Halloween party just because I wanted to talk to my crush.
Our discussions were always about dating, weren’t they?
We cared so much about love without realizing we already had it.
This article was originally published onJune 21, 2023
