Thank gawd for Wi-Fi. I’m on the Megabus heading back to DC from a girls weekend in Raleigh, and am so grateful for the entertainment. The trip down on Amtrak took 9 hours– it should have taken 5, but the train broke down outside of Richmond, so we were stuck in the heat while they repaired it. Lesson learned: do not take Amtrak ever again. Ever.

While I listen to the guy next to me attempt to hit on the girl sitting behind us, I am reminded (once again) that I am not 18 anymore. The evidence was mounting all weekend:

Exhibit A: 50% of the girls at Girls Weekend are Pregnant
The pregnancy factor has been present for a while. There was a pregnant chick on our Vegas trip a couple of years ago and we’ve gotten together for baby showers– but this is the first time we’ve met the 50% mark. Our conversations were about things like finding the best stroller, the size of the epidural needle and how long it’ll take before your baby sleeps through the night.

Exhibit B: Your main activity of the weekend is eating, not drinking.
Don’t get me wrong, eating has always been paramount to a good weekend, but that’s literally all we did. Ok, that’s an exaggeration. We ate, walked around the shopping center where we ate, then ate again and walked around that shopping center. The food was the highlight of the weekend… especially Gonza Tacos y Tequila.

Exhibit C: You’re staying in a beautiful home that one of your friends owns.
We’ve all had real-people jobs for a while, but now my friends are getting grown up homes. Second homes– as in, upgrades from their first. And beach houses where they go on the weekend. Long gone are the days when we’d pile into someone’s one-bedroom apartment and share a couch, unless the friend lives in New York– we all still pile into a one bedroom if the friend lives there.

Exhibit D: Nobody did anything stupid.
We may be doing stupid things in our individual lives and discussing them all weekend, but nobody made any poor decisions during the weekend itself. No one drank too much, forgot to check in with their families, or spent their rent money on shoes. The wildest thing we did was stay up until 3:30 in the morning talking. We also got spur-of-the-moment-pedicures. That was pretty wild, too.

Verdict: Guilty!
Throw the book at me for thinking this was a perfect weekend, despite the lack of things that used to excite me. Farewell, younger years. I’m back in DC feeling refreshed, and not like someone ran me over with a truck. I’m in my 30s now (mid-30s? nah, I’m not ready for that), that’s ok.

I’m going to hold off on the mid-life crisis for now. I saw one in action this weekend, and it wasn’t pretty.