Brunch with my Posse, or I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends...

Main Entry: pos·se
Pronunciation: 'pä-sE
Function: noun
Etymology: Medieval Latin posse comitatus, literally, power or authority of the county
1 : a large group often with a common interest
2 : a body of persons summoned by a sheriff to assist in preserving the public peace usually in an emergency
3 : a group of people temporarily organized to make a search (as for a lost child)
4 : ENTOURAGE
from M-W.com

I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been reading (more about that in another post), working on my house, and trying to figure out whether I want to keep doing what I'm doing, which pays well but is boring me silly, plus there's that formidable commute. In the meantime, on Saturday morning I had a happy respite from all this mulling: I met with my posse for brunch. These are friends with whom I share laughter and tears, successes and failures, dreams and regrets...knowing I won't be judged. (And I know that I'm lucky, because I have a couple of additional friends who don't live in Texas, with whom I also share those things...)

Anyway, here we are, from left to right: Chandini, Sherri, moi, Maryse, and Melissa. The five of us worked together a couple of light years ago in an outpatient pediatric psychiatry program at Children's Medical Center in Dallas. There, we became fast friends, and though all of us have left that program, thanks to modern technology we stay in touch, and last Saturday morning, for the first time in two years, we got together again, to play catch up in person. As you can see by the photo, we are a diverse group, ranging in age from 28 (Chandini and Melissa) to 58 (which I became on September 11). Chandini and Maryse are married; Melissa is engaged; Sherri is single; I'm divorced. Chandini and Melissa were just out of college when they started working at Children's; since then, both have completed Master's degrees, and Chandini now administers grants for a large foundation in Dallas, while Melissa is completing her last year of medical school before beginning a residency in child psychiatry. Sherri worked briefly as pharmaceutical rep before starting her own business; she now has 9 employees and twice a year takes fabulous adventure vacations that leave all of us envious (think white water rafting on the Nile) - oh, and her hair is in braids because she ran a 10K before meeting us for brunch. Maryse, a clinical psychologist, has just returned from two years living in Paris. Chandini is pregnant with twins; Maryse is currently a stay-at-home mom of two preschoolers; my 4 are grown and one has a child of her own...and Joni Mitchell's song, The Circle Game, comes to mind...

And the seasons they go round and round
The painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game