My Once-A-Year Sisters

Eighteen years. Many marriages don’t last that long. A lot of friendships don’t either. But ours has…and so has our annual trek to a tiny cottage on a tiny lake in a tiny town in the middle of Wisconsin. It’s been eighteen years since we had our first “Ya-Ya Weekend.” (Yes, it’s a nod to the Rebecca Wells book, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.) Since then, we’ve fine-tuned our preparations and cut back on the groceries. Other than that, not much has changed.

It’s a weekend where we sit back, catch-up and sometimes reconnect with our own identities. It’s a time when we take a break from being employees and sisters and wives and mothers and, for once, just be us. I have to say, that’s the hardest part – not being defined by our relationships to other people. For a few days, we get to be ourselves – we laugh at the stupidest things and say what’s on our minds – without feeling like we’ll be judged for any of it.

We have traditions – craft night, Saturday night on the boat, setting goals for next year. (Never revealed to outsiders, rarely ever met and hardly ever criticized.) Other than that, we have blessedly few obligations. We update each other on our lives and swap advice on topics as mundane as child-rearing or decorating. Somehow we manage to always do the most important thing of all: We build each other up before we send each other off. I wish everyone could be so lucky.

*Yes, that's me, hanging out on the far right.