Girls' Night Out

There are five of us and we are sitting in the dining room shovelling spoonfuls of chicken paprika, fried milkfish in onions and chicken broccoli casserole into our mouths, talking at the same time. We try not to let specks of food fly. We are seldom successful. And we don't care.

This is supposed to be a once-in-a-month gathering, a coven of five giggly "girls" who heap insults and compliments upon each other's heads in equal measure. The power of five. Alas.

This is my first attendance, while most have made it to four. I am abashed and ashamed at my reticence, yet almost reluctant to leave my wifehood and motherhood behind to take up where I left off on scattered friendships. I have calcified into my comfort zone. A pox on me.

What seems like aeons ago we were lawschool hopefuls: studying, partying, intriguing, arguing. Young and immortal, tireless zealots (mostly) without cause. Now four are wives and mothers. Two proudly wear the badge of counselor. One feels the odd man out.

They chide me for my flimsy excuses, and for having cut my hair. They coo at pictures of my babies. I coo at pictures of theirs. Giddy from the food and strawberry wine, we gossip in front of the television, striving to keep up with a tagalog teleserye of step-siblings in love, while scoring the latest news on our peers.

I am trying to dance an old dance, struggling to remember the steps, while they waltz around me in circles, urging me back into the cotillion.

Time induces the of strangest things. While I have become confident at mothering and wifedom, I suck at friendship. I can tell. They can tell.

After groping for a time, I call it a night at eleven. Outrageously early for a girls' evening out. But I am embarrassingly eager to get back to my sleeping babies, feeling guilty for having missed out on kissing them goodnight.

I wave goodbye, relieved, yet unwilling to give up on myself. If I have lost the spark of my youth, I shall fight to regain it. As with the friendships I refuse to let slip from my grasp.

Girls, same time next month?