The Great 50 Meet-Ups

I turned 50 this year.  It's an interesting time in my life. I feel like I'm at a threshold, but unsure what I'm stepping toward. Life is in flux--my daughter has left for college, my husband has a wonderful new job with new colleagues and ways of managing his days, and my job(s) are not quite in tune with my needs and interests.   I celebrated my birthday quite simply--a drive to the mountains, followed by dinner and a cake with Nelson and Liz.  

The highlight of turning 50, however, has been re-igniting friendships with my oldest friends. Thanks to Facebook, we found each other and retreated to Lake George for a weekend of visiting.

We spent a day canoeing in some of the roughest water I've ever canoed in.

And, we reenacted some of our teenage shenanigans--Andy and I were carded at age 16 and he promised in my yearbook that we'd try again sometime and not get carded.

We tried again over 30 years later...and Andy was carded.

What fun we had and I still smile when I think back to that magical weekend at Lake George.

At the beginning of November, I traveled to New York City to meet-up with my two best friends from high school. Here we are in Washington, DC on a chorus trip.

Here we are 20 years later in NYC!

It was the first time the three of us had been together in nearly 20 years. We spent the weekend talking, talking, talking. We discovered our friendship had endured and we discovered that 20 years later, we still liked each other! We left the weekend feeling like we had started something new.

Here we are toasting our 50th birthdays!

We plan to meet-up again in April. I had always hoped that when I turned 50, I would go away with some female friends to celebrate this turning point in life.  It actually happened and I look forward to many more such weekends in the coming years.