My girlfriends and I recently went on our annual Girls Trip. When I tell you I love a girls trip, oh man, do I MEAN it.
I love recharging my feminine energy in a new space with all of my favorite ladies.
We spent this Girls Trip playing it low-key. We picked South Haven, Michigan so that everyone could drive. We rented a house close to the beach and planned on bumming it all weekend.
It mostly rained the whole time, but we made the best of it.
This particular trip we couldn’t stop laughing and pointing out all of our toxic traits. We’d laugh at our own self-deprecation, sharing our “worst” qualities with the group. Anything that would pop up.
“I talk too much.”
“I make my husband wipe his feet off before he gets in bed every night.”
“I’m creepy.”
None of these are truly toxic at all, but we had fun with them anyway.
My actual toxic trait? One of my worst? I ruin my own girls trips thinking toxic thoughts the whole time.
I never really confided in anyone about any of this, but it is a habit that is buried so deep inside of me. I have done this for as long as I can remember.
I have been on trips to the most beautiful places with the most wonderful friends and had the opportunity to do that most epic things, and sometimes it felt like I never actually let myself enjoy them because I was thinking about things that never really mattered.
It starts with what I’m wearing, what shade of tan I am, how flat my stomach is in this bathing suit, etc. Then it gets worse. I start to take those thoughts to the next level, by comparing myself to the women in the group. I secretly wish my thighs looked like hers. I get sad thinking about how we’re both drinking heavily tonight, but I’m the one who is going to wake up to new cellulite because of it, not her. I watch her swipe her joint credit card at the boutique, envying her double-salaried bank account, and the man she will be going home to at the end of this trip.
Sometimes we go out and I feel like I’m in competition with all of them to zero in on the man who will inevitably come talk to us. I envy the confidence and the blonde hair and slender figures I am up against.
When we part ways the last day, I find myself sad. Not because the weekend is over, but because I am going home alone and to no one.
These thoughts are disgusting. They make me feel shame, so I never speak about them.
Here I am, with women I truly love and admire, and I have the audacity to think about them this way. I have cried at all of their weddings and held their beautiful children in my arms. How could I feel so incredibly happy for them and be so jealous of them at the same time?
This past year has been such a reckoning, I think, for so many of us. It’s allowed me to take a long hard look at myself in the dirtiest mirror I could find. I am taking responsibility for things that have been holding me back for so many years because there is no other way out.
This trip felt like a sigh of relief. I entered into it with a clear head and a feeling of contentment which I have rarely felt in social situations like these. I made peace with the body I am currently blessed with, I packed clothing that would make me feel good about myself, and I decided to enjoy myself instead of punishing myself for the inevitable calories I would consume.
And you know what? It worked. Why? Because these women know and love me. They don’t ever care about any of the shit I worry about in this little neurotic brain of mine.
Do I still have worries, concerns, insecurities, and areas of my life that I want to see change? Absolutely.
But you know what? They’re all still going to be there to deal with when I get home. And how sad would it be if I spent my whole trip worrying or being jealous or melancholy?
How sad that I’ve actually already spent so many past girls trips doing just that?
Never again. These are special times, with special people. I am blessed beyond measure, and I won’t squander those moments any longer.