Making time for your girlfriends is easy when you have the paradise of as your setting by Laura Holloway
Finding time for your girlfriends is easy when you’re young. A ‘Ladies Night’ is planned, everyone meets at the favorite local dive, selfies are taken, karaoke songs are sung, and you make the same plan for the next week. As we grow older, it’s no longer about finding time for your friends; it’s about making time. And as we grow older, life happens, and our journeys take us to opposite sides of the world, with budding careers, emerging families, and responsibilities that come with it all. Ladies Night becomes a thing of the past, and finding time for each other isn’t as easy as it once was.
But the truest of friends make their friendship a priority, and a yearly girls getaway becomes not only a necessity for strengthening the bonds of our relationships, but a treasured time that continues to add to our mind’s scrapbook of happy memories and irreplaceable happenings. For many, Seaside provides the perfect backdrop for this annual event, and this year, my girlfriends and I set up camp along Seaside’s Forest Street in a beautiful house called ‘Walkin’ on Sunshine’ — a name that quickly became our weekend’s mantra and purpose.
Although each friend at this year’s soiree was like family to me, some were strangers to each other, so upon checking in, introductions were made, but we then awarded ourselves aliases for the weekend: our pet’s name partnered with a favorite hip-hop artist from the ‘90s. I was Lady Dre. Within minutes of tossing our bags onto our chosen beds, the blender was humming with pina colada mix and Captain’s rum, and within an hour there was not a stranger in the house. Everyone had changed into the beachiest of attire, and with frozen concoctions in hand, we giggled out into Seaside to start what would soon become a weekend better than any of us imagined.
I’m actually a resident of 30A, my home just a few miles west of Seaside in Blue Mountain Beach. And several other local gals joined in on the weekend fun. But the others had arrived from California, Vermont and Alabama, and the delight of our girls-only weekend was heightened by the delicious sea air and white sandy beaches that only the Emerald Coast can afford. There really is no other place like it, and even though I am a local, for this weekend I felt like a tourist, equally mesmerized by the endless summer feel that Seaside brings, with Perspicasity’s open-air market, tall Modica Market mimosas, vintage and quirky finds from Central Square records, and endless delicacies from Great Southern Café that spark three-hour brunches and lingering conversation. We had sandy feet, tangled beach hair and sunburned noses, and we couldn’t have been happier.
We rarely left the paradisiacal borders of Seaside, traveling outside only for karaoke at Marie’s and dancing at Pandora’s, and while the dreamy beach, cool emerald water, and mouth-watering fare drew us away from the house, we found that many of our greatest memories were made at Walkin’ on Sunshine, each of us plopped into a wicker chair or cushioned swing on the porch, just talking, laughing and enjoying the moment. We had nowhere to be, and for each of us with equally busy lives, schedules and accountabilities, this was perhaps the most precious gift of all. We had time for each other, because we had made time for each other. And Lady Dre couldn’t be more ready for next year.
