Pajama Party

What’s more fun than a pajama party with your girlfriends at 15? I’ll tell you, a pajama party in your 80’s!!
This is how it happened! My husband went to visit his daughter for a few days, so I invited two of my oldest, dearest friends up to spend the night! (Ok, disclaimer, they are not as old as me.) What fun! First, I took them to the drugstore for some lunch (always a must), with a little shopping and browsing in and around the upper village. Then, my friend, Bobbie bought us tickets to the absolutely stunning Lotus Land for the afternoon tour (which I haven’t been to in years) and afterwards we came back, talked and watched the news (OMG, What is happening in our world?) then Lynne took us out to dinner to the new, vegan restaurant, in town, named Oliver’s in Montecito, where we sat on the beautifully lit patio.  As soon as we arrived home we put on our jammies and that’s how we stayed until 1:00 the next day. Talking, talking, talking. Did we run out of things to say? No! Did we get tired of each other? Not a bit! We talked about some of our beloved friends, we have lost but maybe will find again at some point in time. We talked about growing older, our childhood, our young dates (of course, we knew them all), our parents, our kids and grandchildren, our husbands, dead and alive, and the world situation.

As a matter of fact we talked about everything, but the tea in China, as my mother used to say. Did we have enough time? No. We would have still been talking but we felt we needed a little exercise and so we finally left to walk to, you guessed it, lunch! We had lunch, at the Honor Bar, a little browsing on Coast Village Road and walked back to my home.  They left that afternoon at about 3:00.   It wasn’t enough!
 
New friends are exciting and interesting, but

old friends fit like a pair of comfortable shoes!

We have no secrets from each other. Whatever we say or feel is understood. It takes a long time to build that trust. I loved that PJ party and plan to do it more often, I don’t know about you, but as I grow older, I need to talk about how it feels to age and hear how other people are experiencing it, what they are feeling and thinking.  It was cathartic for all of us! We decided a few things. As we grow older, we need good health! (the most important) also what good health looks like, changes over the years and we have to learn to accept that. We need good friends we can trust who accept us for who we are.

We need curiosity about everything that is happening around us and the desire to seek it out.

We need exercise to keep our limbs moving and our heart working and very importantly, we need a purpose in life. We need a way to feel, necessary and helpful, whether it be for our children, grandchildren or total strangers. Sleepovers are recommended for everyone! It brought us back to our youth, in a good way. There were a few tears, I think, but only when we talked about lyrics to songs and how, now, we really understood them.
 
The great thing about being older is that you have nothing to hide, nor do you need to keep to any kind of a schedule.
 
“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” 
― Gabriel García Márquez
 
 
BTW, Those of you who are thinking of coming to Montecito and are a little nervous how it might look, you would never know anything has happened on the main streets. The restaurants and stores are all open and it’s business as usual. The weather is gorgeous and Montecito is waiting with open arms.