InnerTeub

When I travel for work, I rarely have time to socialize in whatever city I’m in; it’s normally a combination of fly-in, check in, work, work dinner, fly out. But I had a D.C. trip popped up and allowed for some leeway and I was able to sneak in fairly solid friend-spending throughout the week.

(Aside: pro-tip, ladies: If you ever feel bad about yourself, go hang out by yourself at the W roof top bar around 5:30 on a weeknight. I got to happy hour a touch early, and if I was the type of person to mis-use the word literally, I would tell you that I was literally fighting off middle aged professional men with a stick. Luckily my girls arrived quickly and we were able to insulate ourselves fairly easily, but, damn. I haven’t felt that good about myself since college. (kidding.))

I wasn’t able to stay at this happy hour as long as I wanted – early work day and all that – but my dear friends ended up staying till past midnight, which for a bunch of women with children and full time jobs, let’s just say that was completely unexpected. While with them, I had small internal hissy fits ( “Why did I move so far away from my friends???”), but we all readily acknowledged the  extreme exception this night was having to every rule (at one point, we all agreed that it had literally (for real, this time) been years since we all decided to rage on a weeknight. Life changes, and so do we, but it was nice we could organize a night for ourselves.

I stayed over Friday night, and had arranged to surprise my friend Chris for dinner at his house, which, if you read that correctly, means I invited myself over for dinner with no warning. I figured it was best if I interacted with Chris as I always did, and showing up unannounced and expecting food is fairly par for the course. I love a good surprise, and I love a good family dinner, and I got to have all those Friday night. I spent this rest of the weekend running long with friends, eating sweaty brunch with friends, and even hitting up my old yoga studio, which, even though I was by myself, felt like seeing an old friend in its own way.

The people combined with the awesome spring weather was basically D.C.’s way of being an  ex-boyfriend: doing everything right for a few days so you forget everything wrong. And in so many ways, the things ‘wrong’ are so minimal, although there was a hilarious moment on dinner Saturday night when someone mentioned a purse costing “$1500 – the cost of a mortgage!” and then we all cracked up, because: not the cost of our D.C. mortgages, not even close. I was ready to leave by Sunday – back to my house and my boys, and well, my life –  but it was great to be back in a place that is still so much an emotional home to me, and the people I consider family.

*Jack Nicholson in ‘A Few Good Men’