This morning was the monthly-ish meet up of my friends from college, specifically the ones I met teaching aerobics at the on-campus gym. We met and bonded over 30 years ago wearing leotards, doing grapevines, and learning how to teach the latest fitness craze–step aerobics. When we weren’t teaching classes for our fellow classmates or campus staff, we were attending each other’s classes or practicing choreography. That’s not us in the picture below, but that was the vibe.

Even though we haven’t always been in regular contact, we’ve remained connected. It’s a sisterhood that has seen us through marriages, divorces, cancer, and the trials of online dating. And regardless of how many days, weeks, or years have passed between seeing each other, our time together often ends in us doing some version of our old fitness choreography and yelling, “Grapevine to the right! Step touch!” Also not any of us pictured below, but that’s a grapevine, in case you were wondering.

Most recently we’ve been meeting at restaurants so it’s not as easy to start doing the pony to the 90s music playing in our heads, but we have fun nevertheless. Okay, that is us pictured below. (Side note: maybe I should write a post about how I didn’t have any close Asian friends until college…)