Sassy Sisterhood Syndrome

Philip was the first one to document it. Marlowe confirmed it. Clayton was relieved to hear it and glad to propagate it. Seth was keenly aware of the syndrome. It seems that when my three best friends from high school and I are planning or anticipating or actually getting together to see one another, we get a little sassy with our husbands.

I think they also may have described us as bossy, domineering, unwilling to listen, impertinent, and feisty. I might have even heard the word diva floating around.

Over the several days that we were together for Amy's wedding, Molly, Erika, Amy and I all shook our heads or smiled when this subject came up (or was harped on), but none of us protested. We all know that on some level it is true. 98% of the time, we are each members of full-fledged partnerships with our husbands in separate cities around the country. But when we know we are going to be in each other’s presence some sort of fever overcomes us. I have been trying to break this one down and here is what I have come up with:

We grew up together and we grew up sharing our dreams and best hopes with each other. I'm not talking about the grade school or middle school growing up--I am talking about the hard part--when we started to do grown-up things like fall in love and marry and have babies and move around and have jobs. Through it all we had an unspoken pact between us that we could do anything. And we've done a lot of those things. At 21 I think we thought it was going to be a much quicker trip to those best hopes and terrific dreams. We were pretty sure of ourselves and getting surer.

At 30, part of us knows that life is a long, hard process and that we will be growing up forever. Of course now, unlike at 21, our husbands are part of that building, molding, and refining process. We love each of them dearly, but when the girls get together we are reminded of the feeling we of growing up. Together we are each other’s growth charts. Living, walking, breathing benchmarks. It isn’t a competitive thing. It is a checking in thing. Like when we were sitting at Erika's cabin talking about how "My Best Friend’s Wedding" could be us (at Phil or Seth's weddings) or at the Blueberry Cafe wondering if this med school thing was ever going to end (it has) or at in Amy's parents' new and still to be furnished home studying for a World History exam and dreaming about college and Europe and boys. We have always bolstered each other and that is a good thing. We remind each other that although we are works-in-progress that we are moving somewhere. When we see each other only about once a year--if that--we are reminded of where we've been and where we're going. And that makes us sassy.

Don't worry boys, it is just for a few days. When we separate, we return to your grounded arms and are better because we are bolstered.