Brooke Murphy Photography

After thinking through what I wanted to capture this month for Project Life in Color, I decided I wanted to continue off of last month’s post; not so much focusing on how to be more positive, but finding positive things that exist already and motivate me.  And I think I did just that.  My photo may not be  styled or perfect but believe me, that night was great, the sushi was fab and these women are a never-ending supply of smiles.

My “book club” girlfriends are a hoot and half.  They’re seriously some of the funniest, fast-witted women I know.  Which makes for fantastic conversation that’s riddled with startled snorts and hands reaching for napkins to cover it up.  And our latest night out included delicious sushi, bottles of wine, chopsticks finding their way across plates, talking with our mouths full and ending on a cool note with ice cream.  I actually had to roll myself into my car when it was time to head home.

I’ve always enjoyed our dinners, nights out, midnight movie adventures and standing around a cheese plate in a kitchen.  But there was an article that made us realize that we were “those women.”  The Onion hit the nail on the head; it’s a parody of course, but still relevant of how we act when we’re together.  And we jumped on the bandwagon of referring to our nights out as “overindulging in emotionally supportive behavior and generally validating the living shit out of each other.”

It’s what we do.  Honestly.  We “listen hard and console even harder.”

Between the quips and jokes and laughs, we’re genuinely interested in each others’ well-being, family and career.  And we talk about these things regularly.  We celebrate milestones of growing families, birthdays, anniversaries and promotions.  We cheer on the small things like new boyfriends, successful sewing projects, venturing out with newborns for the first time and finding the perfect dining room table.  We give each other nods of encouragement, smiles of agreement, hand squeezes of understanding, pats on the knee of support and hugs just to wrap our arms around each other.

Yes.  We validate the living shit out of each other.  We tend to “get completely out of hand, respecting and valuing each other to the point that many had clearly had far too much validation.”   Haha!  But it’s wonderful – THEY’RE WONDERFUL.

Funnily enough, when most of us worked in the same office together, I wasn’t this close to them.  It took time apart – and then time together – to make our friendships blossom into what they are now.  And now I can’t imagine not having them around.  Because every time I spend even just a few minutes with any of these women, they fill my bucket.  After a night out together, or even at a child’s birthday party that is swarming with kids and noise (and importantly, cake), my bucket is overflowing with goodness, a smile stays on my face longer than it usually does.  I just feel lighter on the inside, better about my choices, happy about everything I have in my life.  And I don’t think there’s anyone out there that can say they don’t love that feeling, especially when it lingers.

Project Life in Color can be interpreted however the photographer pleases and we all seem to taking a different journey.  To see how Andrea saw Project Life in Color this month and continue through our group’s links, visit her blog here.