I sit on my couch waiting for my children to come home from school. I just returned from my first girls trip sober. The idea of traveling home and feeling completely rested just hit me as I sit down my bags and breath. It’s hard to comprehend.

No headache, no heartburn, no swollen ankles and aching eyeballs, and raging anxiety? I think as I do a pulse check. No stress at all. This is incredibly uncomfortably comfortable to sit in. 

My first friends’ sleepovers in 6th grade, I drank. From every teenage family trip my dad ordered me, I drank. Sneaking off Spring Breaks, I drank. I’ve not ever been on a trip, business or pleasure, that didn’t revolve around this habit in my life. Until today. That’s 41 years of booking the Drinks and Drama 7-night Sleepover Special vacation planner package.

I place my hand on my chest. I breathe. Realizing this truth. I don’t seem to know what to do with myself next. I usually returned home hurting and hazy. Dragging my aching bones to the bed. That girl I’m holding today.

Processing these feelings as I sit here in the calm, the quiet, hearing my own clear headed breaths. Feeling the rest in my heartbeat and the steady core. I have actually accomplished this? It happened when I wasn’t even looking. A vacation that actually nourished me. This feels so odd but self loving.

I wonder, is this how every one else feels after a trip with old friends? Thinking of all the hard rides home, the sad potholes, and pain packed up like the old dirty overstuffed luggage. Instead I relaxed beach side reading, napping and writing. I meditated and gave myself facials while watching old movies.

While sipping seltzers and hot tea, we laughed until we cried. Peeing our pants about silly stories we should have never lived through, and heart aches that we did. The experiences we never processed as young women we now look at with gentle care. My truth in recovery was met with such support and judgement free.

I am unpacking this moment. Putting away clean clothes, clean shoes, and smell the fresh, not sweat and soured life. No mystery stains and cuts to heal. No guilt, no shame, no lies to tell. No sand to shake and wipe away. There’s no surprises, no fog, no overdrawn bank account. No I’m sorry’s to say, no blaming hangovers on others, while I pretended I behaved. My mind is in a new space and fresh with new feelings. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way before. I took a girls trip and didn’t fall.