37 Hours

Not for work or optics. Not to be useful. To celebrate.

I flew in.

Rented a car at the airport and drove into the desert like this was ordinary. Like I hadn’t rearranged a week of real life to be there for less than two days.

Thirty-seven hours.

Mandy Jo turned fifty.

I was her surprise.

She didn’t know I was coming.

We have stood shoulder to shoulder in rooms where the outcome could have gone either way. We have texted from bathroom stalls when it felt like too much. We have cried together when it was hard and when it was easy. Fluorescent tears. Mascara tears. The kind that come from grief and the kind that come from relief.

She has seen me heartbroken.

I have seen her carry more than anyone named.

Fifty is earned.

So I flew in.

Changed in the rental car in the bar parking lot because there wasn’t time to waste. Desert air through the cracked door. Lipstick in the rearview mirror. Boots on hot asphalt.

When she walked out and saw me under the neon light, she stopped. Pointed. Confused. Clearly.

Hand to her mouth.

A sound that wasn’t quite a scream.

Then she ran.

Right there, glowing pink and blue, she wrapped herself around me like we were twenty-five again and nothing hard had happened yet.

That was the whole trip.

Later, yes, I climbed onto the bar.

Not to be watched.

But because joy felt physical and I didn’t want to hold it in.

I danced.

Thirty-seven hours. A flight. A rental car. Neon light on asphalt.

Worth it.

Because when the women who have cried with you in both the breaking and the becoming turn fifty, you do not send flowers.

You show up.

Even in the neon light.

We Build Anyway.

jess