There is something deeply humbling about being on a girls’ weekend with women who are older than you, louder than you, more experienced than you, and somehow still able to drink you under the table before the actual wine tour has even happened.
I went to bed at 10.
They did not.
Let me just start there.
A Northern Michigan Girls’ Weekend Is Not for the Weak
This was Northport.
Twenty-eight women at a resort.
Morning coffee.
A hot tub with just three of us.
And mimosas made with what I can only describe as a disrespectful splash of orange juice.
The kind of mimosa where the orange juice was mostly there as a suggestion.
A garnish.
A whisper of citrus.
A splash of color so we could all pretend this was breakfast.
And I was watching all of it like I had accidentally been invited into a documentary on womanhood in its natural habitat.
There were stories about grown children, old festivals, and drunk Nordic Fest memories.
Someone got confused about left and right during a wine tasting.
Pelvic floor therapy came up, because of course it did.
So did pooping in private.
Children.
Birthing.
All things vaginas.
There was a jigsaw puzzle.
There was coffee.
There were drinks.
There were women talking over each other in that way that somehow still counts as listening.
At one point, I walked downstairs and someone announced they had just finished playing a very inappropriate game, as though this entire weekend wasn’t already the biggest inappropriate game I had ever walked into.
And I mean that lovingly.
Mostly.
And Then There Was Euchre
Because in Michigan, euchre is not just a card game.
It is a rite of passage.
A social test.
A regional survival skill.
Michigan may not have invented euchre, but we absolutely made it a personality trait.
I grew up with a grandfather and a family who played cards like it was their J.O.B.
Not a hobby.
Not a casual little pastime.
A profession.
A calling.
A full-contact emotional sport with snacks.
So I know euchre.
I know trump.
I know bowers.
I know table talk.
I know the quiet tension of someone staring at their partner like, Are you going to help me or ruin this family?
I understand the stakes.
I just lost the competitive gene a few years back.
Somewhere between raising kids, surviving life, and realizing my nervous system no longer needs to enter fight-or-flight over a left bower, I emotionally retired from competitive card playing.
I can still play.
I just no longer need to win hard enough to alter the air pressure in the room.
These women, however?
Still had it.
There was strategy.
There was suspicion.
There was table talk.
There were accusations of cheating wrapped in laughter and familiarity.
Someone was called a table talker, which I’m pretty sure in Michigan is only one step below calling someone a felon.
And I loved it.
Not because I didn’t understand it.
Because I did.
I recognized the rhythm immediately.
The teasing.
The fake outrage.
The way a card game can turn into a courtroom, a family reunion, and a low-level hostage situation all at once.
The Stories Underneath the Laughter
Because yes, there was alcohol.
A lot of alcohol.
And again, I would like it noted that the wine tour had not even happened yet.
But underneath the laughing and the mimosas and the cards and the beach rocks, there were entire lives sitting around that room.
One woman recounted losing her husband.
Not as a dramatic announcement.
Not as a performance.
Just as part of the story of who she is.
And there was something about that that made me quiet inside.
Because some people have lived so many lives inside one life.
Some had stories that ranged from working as a clown to snorkeling in Hawaii to traveling to Sri Lanka to being in the military, marriage, motherhood, loss, love, and everything in between.
Just casually.
As if that isn’t an entire memoir sitting in a chair drinking coffee.
These women are incredible.
Not in a polished, inspirational-quote kind of way.
In a real way.
In the way women become incredible after living through things and still showing up with stories, snacks, card games, swimsuits, opinions, homemade sauce, fresh pasta, and the ability to make a mimosa that could legally start a lawn mower.
There were the loud ones.
The veterans.
The ones who knew how to jump into the rhythm of the weekend without hesitation.
The ones who could make homemade pasta like it was no big deal.
The ones who could make tomato sauce so good it could probably heal generational trauma.
And I mean that sincerely.
That sauce had emotional range.
And then there were the quieter ones.
The ones who sat back and watched.
Smiled occasionally.
Nodded when needed.
Observed.
I was one of those.
I was having the best time.
And I was completely out of my element.
Both things were true.
There is a certain kind of woman who can walk into a weekend like this and immediately belong.
She knows where to put her bag.
She knows when to pour the next drink.
She knows how to join the conversation without overthinking it.
These women can tell a story loudly, laugh from their whole chest, accuse someone of euchre crimes, and then one can carry a boulder up twenty steps from the beach while insisting it is “just a little rock.”
And to be clear, she swears she was not drunk.
She just needed air.
Obviously.
Not even a little drunk.
This was sober boulder confidence.
Meanwhile, I see a pebble and think, that’s a little rock.
She sees landscaping.
That is the difference between me and the women I was with.
And I loved it.
Not because I wanted to become someone else.
Because it was good to be near women who were so fully themselves.
Women who knew how to show up, tell stories, laugh too loud, make room, make sauce, stress about sausage, carry rocks, and be imperfect without needing to announce it as a personal growth strategy.
Womanhood Does Not Have One Volume Setting
I kept thinking, we are all just imperfect people.
Not in a cheesy wall-sign way.
In a real way.
In the way you notice when you’re sitting in a room full of women who have lived enough life to stop pretending everything about them is smooth and tidy.
They have stories.
They have opinions.
They have grief.
They have second chances.
They have grown children who put pants on backward.
They have old festival memories.
They have bodies that have done things and betrayed them and carried them and embarrassed them and survived.
They have old marriages, new upcoming marriages, losses, new beginnings, inside jokes, loud laughs, and probably at least one purse full of emergency medication, lip gloss, and snacks.
And then there was me.
Watching.
Learning.
Laughing.
A little younger than most.
A little quieter at first.
Less seasoned in this exact kind of group-woman-weekend energy.
I was not keeping up with the drinks.
I was not staying up late.
I knew the euchre politics. I just no longer had the will to litigate a left bower like my family’s honor depended on it.
I was not carrying boulders with casual confidence.
But I was there.
And I was included.
And that mattered.
There is something healing about being around women who are not trying to be perfect.
Women who are just being.
Loudly.
Softly.
Awkwardly.
Hilariously.
With sausages and mimosas and hot tubs and confused wine-tasting directions and one more day still left to soak it all in.
It reminded me that womanhood does not have one volume setting.
Some women walk through the room like they own the floor.
Some women sit back and watch.
Some women carry boulders.
Some women call actual little rocks little rocks.
Some women table talk through euchre.
Some women make sauce like it’s a love language.
Some women roll pasta like that’s just what you do on a weekend away.
Some women have lived a thousand stories and somehow tell them like they are simply reporting the weather.
But not coldly.
With love.
With fondness.
With finality.
With acceptance.
With that kind of settled wisdom I can only admire from the corner while pretending I am not emotionally invested in the cheese board.
Some women are the story.
Some women are the witness.
And sometimes the witness is having the time of her life.
One More Day to Soak It In
So yes, I was out of my element.
Completely.
But I was okay there.
More than okay, actually.
I was grateful to be invited into the room.
Grateful for the laughter, the stories, the too-strong mimosas, the beach rocks, the morning coffee, and the strange comfort of realizing nobody really has it all together.
Not even the confident ones.
Not even the loud ones.
Not even the ones who know exactly how much orange juice belongs in a mimosa, which apparently is almost none.
And I still have one more day.
One more day to watch.
To listen.
To laugh.
To soak it all in.
I may still go to bed earlier than everyone else.
Well, it is now 11:00.
So technically, I have already grown as a person.
But I’ll go.
Leave a Reply