Random Suport Group

My friends and I have what we call "Girl's Night" every other week. This started my senior year of college about 4 1/2 years ago I would guess (I can't believe we have been doing this for that long!) It started as a way to just get together and spend some quality time. Since I had moved off campus, Jenni had graduated and lived off campus with a roommate, Tawni had gotten married, and Shanda was living on campus still with a few other girls. We had a rotation and would take turns cooking dinner for each other and then just sitting around talking. As time has gone by, people have moved away and the girls that attend have changed slightly. But we continue on. At one point we were meeting every week and after dinner we would scrapbook together. We got older, got real jobs, got married and started wanting to leave earlier so we stopped scrapbooking and just went back to talking. Now that we are starting to have kids and life gets more hectic, we only meet every other week.

This is more than just a group of girls getting together, this is a commitment. We try not to cancel on each other except for real reasons (being sick for example). At times I know my sister will get annoyed when she asks to hang out on a Wednesday night and I tell her "sorry, it's Girl's Night." She just sighs at me and tells me I belong to "A Random Support Group." In a way, she is right. This is my random support group. Although the members have changed and we continue to add and lose friends, these girls are my support through life's issues that I face. When I was planning my wedding, it was these girls that helped stuff my wedding invitations and even helped me when I planned my sisters rehearsal dinner. Together we have been though birthdays, graduations, weddings, several moves, loss of jobs, starting new jobs, medical issues, we are on the third pregnancy of the group, as well as many other life trials that come our way.

Our husbands at times believe that Girl's Night is about husband bashing, and while we are given the opportunity to share stories, it is a time for us to vent about life and know that we are not the only one going through the situation, we all have been there. We discuss kids, husbands, jobs, school, parents, in-laws, future life plans, and anything else that is on our mind. Life has its ups and downs, having a group of friends to lean all can make a world of difference. We laugh together, cry together, pray for each other, and experience life - together.