Say Yes to the Plans

I saw a video recently that said something like: if you want a social life, you have to actually say yes when people invite you places.

Which sounds obvious. And yet.

As a mom of three, the default answer to almost any plan that requires leaving my house after 7 p.m. could easily be no. Not a mean no, not an unwilling no, just a tired one. The couch is right there, the kids still need to be bathed, and there’s a show I’ve been meaning to watch for four months. The reasons stack up fast, and they’re all perfectly reasonable. None of them are actually making me feel better.

But I say yes anyway, and honestly, I think it’s made all the difference.

My esthetician — who is Irish and therefore says things with a matter-of-factness I find deeply refreshing — told me recently, “If it wasn’t for our girlfriends, we’d all lose our marbs.”

She’s not wrong.

There’s something that happens when you’re around other women that doesn’t quite happen anywhere else: the kind of conversation that goes from genuinely funny to unexpectedly honest in about four minutes. The feeling of being known, not as someone’s mom or someone’s employee or someone’s whatever, but just as yourself, with a drink in your hand and nowhere else you need to be.

It doesn’t have to be elaborate — drinks, a walk, someone’s kitchen table. It just has to happen.

So if you’ve been feeling a little untethered lately, a little like you’re losing your marbs, before you Google your symptoms or adjust your supplements, it might be worth asking a simpler question: when was the last time you said yes to plans?