BoomerGirl Diary

I have the best boyfriend in the entire known universe. He's tall, he's handsome, he adores my daughter. He even knows how to load a dishwasher. But no matter how perfect a boyfriend he is, he will never be a girlfriend. He will never - no matter how hard he tries — understand PMS or what it's like to be in labor or the exultation of finding the perfect black skirt.

The point I'm trying to make is girlfriends need girlfriends.

When we were in third grade, we knew this instinctively. We didn't care about boys-not really. It was fun to taunt them or to try to get them to kiss us at recess, but we knew that when the school day ended, it was our girlfriends we wanted to take home to eat Oreos and sit with us on our bunk beds. Our girlfriends were the ones who liked to talk, who wanted to be silly and giggle. All third grade boys ever wanted to do was drive toy tractors around in the dirt.

Then puberty hit. Our priorities temporarily changed.

Until now.

I wrote this book about the importance of girlfriends and about the things we can do to celebrate friendships with our closest pals. I'm talking about girlfriend getaways. Where it's just you and your girlfriends hanging out. Sometimes, that's really simple say a tea party in the lobby of the local hotel. Other getaways are more complex — weeklong tramps through Mongolia, for example. The point isn't what you do or where you go. The point is simply this ... we girlfriends need to get together.

Friends forever.

Girlfriends have been devising ways to get together for as long as we've been on this planet. We formed quilting bees. We canned vegetables together. We midwifed each other's children. We were part of the fabric of each other's day-to-day lives.

Today, that's not necessarily the case. Between hectic work schedules, bulging day-timers and Johnny's violin lessons, many girlfriends consider themselves lucky if they can find five minutes for a quick call on their cell phone.

Our busy lives have stripped us of the companionship, the support, the daily conversations we so desperately need (yes, NEED!) This is a big problem, girlfriends.

When we don't get together with the girlfriends we love most, the girlfriends who propped us up over the years, the girlfriends who reminded us to laugh, we become unbalanced and eventually unglued.

It doesn't happen right away. It's like the antique chair in the corner on which books, saxophone cases, coats and fat Uncle Sylvester have been piled. At first, it starts to wobble. And then it rocks. Eventually, if we don't pay some attention to that chair, it will fall in upon itself and the people and things it supports will come crashing down, too.

You can't pick up a woman's magazine anymore without finding some kind of article about the importance of taking care of yourself. Well, I'm here to tell you that there's nothing that better takes care of yourself than a time out with your girlfriends. If you ask me, they should be mandatory yearly events for every girlfriend over 18.

Karen Rowinsky, a professional speaker and author from Shawnee Mission, Kan., credits a getaway she took with two of her friends for helping her cope with her first husband's untimely death from liver cancer. All convention told her to postpone the trip, to forget a drive across Iowa with two of her dearest friends.

But deep in her heart she knew that the support and the perspective she would get from the time with her friends would give her the strength to cope with the upcoming months.

"I was exhausted, depressed, and really needed time away. It was a sheer act of will to force myself to leave him and the kids to take just three short days for myself. But it was a blessing that I did. I came back refreshed, renewed, and ready to face anything," Karen says.

She met Mary and Jeanie in Des Moines. With video camera in hand, they took to Iowa's back roads with no particular destination in mind. As she said, "we were merry wanderers." They did know that at some point they wanted to visit the baseball field that had been carved from a corn field for the Kevin Costner movie, "Field of Dreams."

"We became silliler and siller as the hours passed. By the time we got to Field of Dreams, we had decided that we would film a remake of the original movie," Karen says. "We enjoyed the sheer luxury of quiet time together and still had time for intimate, late night talks, and laughing - lots of laughing. The best part was that it cost us next to nothing, just our time."

Sure enough, her husband died a few short weeks later.

"Quite frankly," Karen says now. "I'm not sure I could have gotten through that difficult time without the wonderful, sustaining memory of that simple, silly trip across Iowa. It literally saved my life."

Today, Rowinsky keeps pictures from that getaway and others she's taken with her girlfriends next to her computer. Whenever she needs a reminder of what's important in life, whenever she needs to get centered, to put things in perspective, she looks at those pictures. They're big continual "ah-ha's." They keep her going.

Better stress busters than yoga or breathing or even jogging. A getaway with your girlfriends can restore your sanity. It can bring you back to your best self.

Calling all girlfriends.