Sometimes, you need your posse

And sometimes, you don't even realize it.

We met at work (we sat down and figured this out) nearly 30 years ago, and every summer for decades, we launched an All-Girl Trek Into the Wild, where we strapped on our backpacks, ate tons of food we burned off in vertical climbs, and cheated death. We also had great naps in mountain huts high above timberline, where dreams seem clearer. I looked forward to these trips. They were wonderful for head-clearing. It wasn’t just hiking. It was hiking with these two.

Plus, these two are funny as hell.

We’ve hiked in rain. We’ve fallen face-first onto rocks. We’ve slept in bunk rooms with other smelly hikers. We’ve discussed our bowel movements — a lot. One time, as we headed up a mountain, I left my car at what I thought was a trailhead but turned out to be a cow pasture. When the local constabulary called my home, my husband didn’t worry if I was OK. He figured we’d taken it on the lam and abandoned the car for a life of crime.

Don’t think I haven’t thought about it…

We had our 2020 hike planned, but, well, you know. Like everyone else, we set about surviving the pandemic, along with random illnesses, family trauma, and life. Some of us dealt with major-league stuff. Some of us moved through garden-variety nonsense, all while feeling peculiarly isolated.

At least, I felt that.

I have wonderful friends and a fascinating husband but when this connection looked lost (“Goddammit, look what else the pandemic took”), I marked it first with anger, and then with sadness.

I’d about convinced myself that I should be grateful that at least I had this group for a a while, but this year, one of my friends suggested we meet in Asbury Park, a place she and her husband frequent. We began planning — no hikes, but we would eat as if we were hiking because what the hell.

Nothing’s easy. I may stitch that onto my family crest. A few days before we were to meet in New Jersey, wildfires in Canada sent dense, scary smoke south, and the two of us with lung issues considered whether it was a good idea to travel when our respective state governments told us to stay inside.

I shrank my world during the pandemic and some of that was internal. I felt anxious about this trip. I’m not deep enough to so much as think before acting, yet here I was, waking up at night, wondering if it was stupid to go.

We shot texts back and forth and decided that we cheated death before and we would do so again. We all left to meet by the sea.

Old friends just get you. They finish your sentences, call you on your crap, and remind you that you are not, in fact, alone. We argue about which version of our accumulated stories is accurate (mine are), and we fight to pick up the check at restaurants. We stay up late talking and planning our next attack.

It felt like crawling out of a bunker. The air cleared up nicely.

We are older and more wrinkled, but please know the All-Girl Trek To the Beach was a success. I trust you have been in touch with your posse, too.