Why I love to party

In the past ten weeks I have thrown the following parties: Bachelorette Beach Weekend, Stock-the-Bar & the-Game-Closet-couples-dinner-shower, & a last-minute quarter-century games in the park birthday bash. I decorated, baked, made costumes and cleaned up the mess afterwards. OHHH, I LOVE a good party!

Yes, the planning & Excel spreadsheets involved in throwing a successful party are right up my alley; however, there's a deeper reason I love getting a lot of people together-- the kind who have loved each other for years and the kind who are just learning the way of new friendships.



It's something to do with the laughs, and the way friends who have long been apart smile in their eyes when they hug. It's something about how wine will inevitably be spilled and/or spewed amidst raucous laughter. It's in the way my newly pregnant friend Tara's husband rubs her back to keep her comfortable so she can enjoy the company, even though she's feeling sick, again. It's the way we all get the jokes without finishing the stories. It's the way we start talking about what it will be like when we all have kids & how we must always get together like this. It's the way Mandy says "I love you" to all of us, repeatedly, when she's had a few glasses of wine, the way Emily points with helpful tips, and the way Lindsey gets even louder.


And there's something in the way new friends hi-five each other after a particularly great game of kickball on a warm Sunday afternoon. It's something about grinning for pictures and eating cheesecake without forks. It's to do with the way we shield our eyes to the bright fall sunlight for greetings called out to friends arriving late. Something in the sound of giggles at the end of a truly heinous rendition of "Happy Birthday." It's about the way acting like kids creates bonds between adults-- strands of friendship stretching between the softball bases and the kickball, amidst the hulahoops and the dogs lounging in the sun, winding themselves into the sweaty hugs and arching over our heads behind the football when the sun begins to set.



I love to throw parties because sometimes, people just need to know the time and the place. Sometimes friendships happen when you simply show up for someone else, and celebrate.