When you are a busy mom, making time for friends can be tough. You have family obligations, work, and all the other things that come with adulting like figuring out how to decorate your house, keep up with yard work, making your kitchen seem kind of clean sometimes.
You make plans but cancel them when you feel overwhelmed. Sometimes it seems like that night out with friends is adding to your stress because it’s keeping you from something else. Or maybe it’s hard because you know you have to leave your kids with your husband and that stresses him out, which stresses you out.
Either way, you need to prioritize your friends at some point. It’s for your health, your mental state and the need to be able to “let go” for just a few minutes. Not to mention, friends are one of the great joys of life, especially if you are lucky enough to have some good ones like me.
That’s why last week, three of my best friends from high school and I decided to ditch the kids (there are a total of 9 between the four of us), get a hotel room downtown and hit up a really fun concert. It was more fun than I expected…mostly because it had been SO long since we’d done anything like this. And I mean like more than a decade. Sure, we had seen each other at Christmas but getting together is very rare. Now that I’m back in Indiana, I was like — yes, let’s rally!
We are all big country music fans so we got floor “seats” (there were no chairs) at the Justin Moore/Lee Brice concert at an indoor facility. First, we met up at the hotel, which we had chosen purposely and conveniently across the street from the concert. We hung out for a bit there, which felt a tad like spring break before a night out (I can dream, right?) and then we headed to dinner where the fun continued — and on to the concert after that.
Our tickets were the cheapest but closest to the stage for some reason so we were literally able to touch the musicians and really have a great time. For a few hours, we were dancing and singing and just being friends together and it was awesome.
We ended the night chatting it up, eating a bunch of pizza and falling asleep MUCH later than normal. I’ll admit, I was feeling kind of awful in the morning (pro-tip, don’t mix types of alcohol, DUH) but later I was refreshed and so glad we’d made this a priority.
It can’t happen ALL the time but plan in advance, get the sitters, take the day off work and get back to some of what you used to love with some of the people you loved to do it with. The four of us were friends in HIGH SCHOOL and college so we have a LOT of memories to choose from and reminincse on. But even if all you have access to are newer friends, there’s a lot to be said for taking time for yourself.
These pix are 13 years apart:
It’s hard to believe you might have to force yourself to have fun, but that’s what life come down sometimes in this season. It’s SO worth it and actually makes you more grateful for all the other parts of life, even the mundane stuff that never seems to end.
You’ll come back ready to be the best mom you can be and glad to remember that being the old you is still available when you need a reminder.
