Good Morning 😀
This morning I woke up with an unusual luxury. Time. Alifya was on an all-girls holiday with a few close friends, and the house felt wonderfully... and strangely... quiet. Like most people who temporarily find themselves alone, I immediately made a list of all the things I was going to enjoy. Watch whatever I wanted. Order food without negotiating. Leave the lights on. Occupy the entire sofa. It turns out those things are entertaining for about forty-five minutes. After that, I found myself opening an old photo album from one of our holidays together. That led me to a question I couldn't answer. What actually happens on an all-girls holiday? Not the Instagram version. The real version. Do conversations become different when there are no partners around? Do old school stories come back to life? Do they laugh harder? Stay up later? Talk about dreams they've quietly shelved? Or do they simply enjoy not being responsible to anyone for a day or two? Anthropologists have long observed that nearly every culture has created spaces where people gather only with those who share similar life experiences. Men's circles. Women's circles. Family reunions. Pilgrimages. Book clubs. Fishing trips. Perhaps humans have always understood something that many of us forget. Sometimes we leave the people we love... to return to them a little lighter. A holiday isn't always an escape from life. Sometimes it's a gentle return to another version of yourself—the one your oldest friends still remember. The version that laughs at stories nobody else understands. The version that existed long before job titles, mortgages and calendars filled with obligations. As I sat looking through those photographs, I realised something. Every memorable holiday I've ever had has one thing in common. I don't remember the hotel. I barely remember the itinerary. I remember who made me laugh until my stomach hurt. Perhaps that's what we're really collecting when we travel. Not destinations. People. And the stories we continue telling because they were there with us. So I have a question for you. Why do you think women love all-girls holidays so much? Ladies, what do those weekends give you that everyday life sometimes doesn't? And gentlemen, what do you imagine happens on those mysterious trips you've never quite been invited to? I'm looking forward to reading every perspective. Until tomorrow, Bob
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