Therapy Weekend

I took an emergency trip to New York a few days ago. Why? Because I needed to get away from everything that was giving me stress and laugh.

So after working on Thursday, I drove six hours and arrived in Buffalo around midnight. I stayed up till three in the morning talking with one of my friends and then woke up at six in time for a coffee/breakfast get together with two of my friends. By four in the afternoon, I was on the road to Jamestown. By seven I was with my best friend and her husband out to dinner. By midnight I was cuddled with one of her cats, smiling as I fell asleep. By ten in the morning on Saturday I was up and about by the time one of my friends from Buffalo came down and then my friend from North Carolina showed up and we laughed for hours until my best friend and her husband came back. Then we took a car ride, helped someone move, went on an epic grocery hunt, went back to Jamestown, drove around until we found a viable Chinese food place, and watched a live action version of an anime while eating dinner. By ten in the evening, I had two of my friends trying to pull me back into the house, begging me not to leave just yet. To call out of work and tell my worship leader that I wasn't coming home yet - I had to stay with my family.

I smiled for an hour on my ride home; just thinking over all the laughter I had been part of within two days. When I crossed back into Pennsylvania, I already could feel my heart yearning to turn back around and spend just a little more time with my second family - the family I chose. The family that chose me.

My college friends and I have been through a lot. We've seen one another at our worst and at our best. We've laughed, we've cried, we've pulled all-nighters together and we've gotten lost together. Through everything that we've encountered, we've come out stronger than we once were. We spend ninety percent of our time together laughing. And I mean the, 'laugh-till-your-sides-hurt-and-joy-radiates-off-your-face' kind of laughter.

This was by far one of the most therapeutic two-day extravaganza I've ever had.

I pray you have a group of friends as wonderful as mine. Because there's a simple fact: I'm beyond blessed to have them in my life. Words cannot describe how much I love them all and how much I wish I could always be around them. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a group of friends that are so wonderful tied together that regardless of the time apart and the miles that separate one another, whenever they're together, it's as if nothing has changed.

Currently Reading: Brisinger by Christopher Paolini
Currently Listening to: "Miles Apart" by Yellowcard (fitting, right?)