More than two weeks have already passed since my Deer Park Diva Weekend, but I'm just now getting the photos uploaded to Facebook and I've barely mentioned it on here.
(Or have I? I can't remember!)
But on these hectic, over-packed days I find myself in lately, I just have to flip a page in my mind to take myself back there beside Rae's pool, surrounded by ladies who have known me most of my life (plus a few Divas-in-Training) and ahhh, the stress just melts away in the warmth of the memory.
Friendship and sunshine. They can cure almost anything - or at least help you get through anything.
Who are the Divas? We're just girls, um, women who used to be girls who attended high school together. Many of us attended junior high and even elementary school together, too. Some are married to the guys who attended high school with the rest of us and that makes them honorary Divas.
We didn't necessarily hang around each other back then or share the same interests or hobbies or classes.
Some of us were best friends in junior high then drifted apart in the bigger sea of high school.
Some became best friends in high school and have somehow hung on through all the ups and downs of the years.
But the important thing is we're friends now, with so much in common, connected by bonds we never realized were there, more than thirty years after graduation.
In their faces, I see all the ages we've been. We didn't spend them all together - there have been gaps in our closeness during those times when our lives led in different directions.
But what a blessing that our paths have once again converged because when I look at these women, I also see survivors. Divorce... deaths of children, husbands, siblings, parents... cancer... the fear of children at war overseas and children battling addiction...
You name it and one of us has lived through it.
I see women who keep going despite it all, who still find plenty to laugh about. Women who love life.
But Patti describes a Diva Weekend much better than I can...
Ode to the Deer Park Divas
So we’re all in our fifties, but none of us care
We’re all just so happy to have us all there.
We talk about husbands, the jobs that we’ve had,
We talk about kids, the good and the bad.
We drink margaritas and hang in Rae’s pool
And remember the days when we were all cool.
We play “who was....?” but mostly don’t know
Which makes us laugh harder at these brains that are slow.
We are 13 again as long as we’re together
And with a little luck, we’ll do this forever.
We’re sisters for life, let the story be told -
We’re the Deer Park Divas and we’ll never grow old!
~ Patti (Stringer) McPeek
Friends Forever!
