I needed this weekend more than I realized. I needed to get away, even if it was just eighty miles from home.

I needed to feel the wind coming in off the grey choppy waters of Lake Whitney. I needed to walk along pale smooth rocks with my dog. I needed to feel the quick excitement at the accomplishment of getting a fire started, and in keeping it going as the wind sought to blow it out until the fire grew strong.

I needed to run down the orange sand beach while the rain started, throw on my bathing suit without thinking about how crazy it was, jump in the lake with three of my closest friends.

I needed to be a child, dunking under in a moment of bravery, a moment of desiring to live fully.

It felt a bit like a coming to life as I resurfaced.

Like defying changing seasons and coming cold. Like baptism. Like defying death.

I fell onto my back with a splash, letting my breath create buoyancy in my body, letting my eyelids shut and the rain fall soft on my face. The air and water around me and the water coming down on me all the same temperature.

I needed to feel that peace.

To listen to the silence between the noise of my life.

Allow it to fill me. Allow me to fill it.

I needed that silence to erupt into a liquid hot burst of joy.

Then the four of us, connected by years of shared memories, broken hearts,  miles traveled and revelations, put words to our lives.

Hard decisions and healing wounds and the journey to finally be ok with who we are.

We accepted each other, each in a different yet similar place.

I needed to be a reminded what a gift these woman are in my life.

How relationships deepening with time is what makes life worthwhile, what drives away our fear of growing up and getting old.

I needed to know how much we need each other.

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We left our campsite after a warning from the park ranger of a coming storm that could blow our tent away.

We drove around the tiny town that shared the name with the tiny town I grew up in in New Hampshire.

I laughed and shook my head at the irony,

“And…. life comes full circle.”

We ended up in a motel and spent the evening talking, drinking, eating, and writing.

The writing was unexpected.

We  thought of a topic then had ten minutes to write whatever came to mind without once stopping or taking our pen off the paper.

Then we read them out loud.

We laughed at our shared random humor, nodded in agreement and encouraged each others talent.

The last topic was “true love,” and each of us brought something honest, funny, and perhaps a little cynical.

I needed to write.  I needed to hear my thoughts put to words, to hear my friend’s words spill out of their hearts.

To know I am not crazy or alone.

To remember what I have, and how precious it really is.

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We parted ways and drove home, exhausted and rejuvenated all at once. Content yet discontent in the things that needed to change in our lives.

But most of all, thankful.

Thankful for words that flow between friends.

For healing. For moving forward. For freedom.

For cool lakes and storms and hotel beds and wine and paper and pen.

And for the silence between the words, the real understanding.

The real grace.

Tags: friends, get away, Growing up, lake, retreat, womanhood, Writing