New Dress, Old Friends

"Be yourself. Everybody else is taken." -Chris Guillenbeau
 
Recently I was able to sit at home and have some “me” time. I remembered a weekend six years ago when the task of shopping for an appropriate dress for my nephew's wedding hit the urgent list after I realized that the happy occasion was only a few weeks away. A sense of panic set in and I summoned the support of my oldest, dearest friends, Priscilla and Lena. 
 
Fancy dresses are not my strong suit and I needed reinforcements to get beyond my "hippie heart" dress tendencies. Fortunately, the girls were more than up for the task as we hopped into Lena's car and headed to Nordstrom's, energized by our mission. 
 
Throwing old paradigms aside, we ventured to the little black dress department and started pulling dresses of all colors and shapes from the racks. Our "dress consultant" located a dressing room large enough to accommodate 25 or so lovely dresses and 3 old school chums. She made sure it was far enough away from her more subdued shoppers so that we would not, ahem, disturb the ambiance.
 
While the dresses were different in many respects, they seemed to share one thing in common. They were meant to be form-fitting. In other words, they were the kind of dresses that looked way better on hangers than on "hippy hearted" women like me. No worries, Lena and Priscilla were there to make it happen. One zipped, while yelling, "Suck it up, Jeanne." The other critiqued. One ran for larger sizes while the other separated the "possible" from the "impossible." Several times, we broke out into uncontrollable laughter as we caught ourselves in the wall to wall mirrors carrying on like teenagers shopping for prom.
 
At one point, I mentioned that I felt just like Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.” That set off a round of hooting and hollering. Somehow we had walked into the dressing room as mature business women and morphed into giggling high school girls. Had we time traveled back to a prehistoric age, a time that pre-dated our adult responsibilities? 
 
Ultimately, we had to summon our "mature selves" back into the room to make a dress decision. We agreed that the perfect dress would be the one we three agreed upon. Consensus was required before a dress would be acquired. Our chaotic process yielded a perfect decision, once again proving that teamwork works. We indeed decided upon the "perfect dress."
 
While I was very pleased with my new dress, and have enjoyed it well beyond the wedding, I was completely blown away by my old friends. We may not see each other often, but when we do, an amazing thing happens. We just pick up where we left off. And, we enjoy who we become when we get together for lunching, a shopping trip, or a weekend adventure. We remember the way we were when we were care-free and life was easy, and we bring a little "free and easy" back with us.
 
 New dress: pretty wonderful! Old friends: priceless!