"It does not suck to be us"

Ever felt rich?

I grew up in a family that never didn’t have a teeny tiny budget only for “necessities.”

Necessities did not include beautifully made hand-forged oxidized outdoor furniture or gigantic brightly-colored market umbrellas in multiples or 800-gram poolside towels that were stored in a redwood trunk behind controls for a massive pool/spa in the backyard. Necessities did not include thick foam pool floats in a black-bottom pool or a cocktail cart or an arbor covered in grapevines that dripped big bunches of cabernet.

My friend whose family owns a prominent Napa Valley Winery did not have to worry about saving for necessities, however. Nope, she had all of those wonderful things, and she shared.

Every time my group of high school girlfriends and I would gather at her home, we would say the same thing after sitting down and inhaling the first scent of an oversized glass of sauvignon blanc, “It does not suck to be us.” 

We never took it for granted. Relaxing in a bathing suit with said towel fallen off our shoulders and bunched around our waists, with healthy tans and crazy swimming pool hair we sat and watched the sun set directly over the valley from our place in the middle of it, a group of cage-free teenagers amongst thousands of grapevines.

It did not suck.

Waking up leisurely after a big overnight party, each of us emerging from a different bedroom. The walk down the stairs of her geodesic dome with a two-story ceiling. The coffee already made. The two extra-long extra-wide burnished leather sofas facing each other, flanked by white Wassily chairs. The five pugs snorting and drooling balls of spit while cuddled up on the sofas in the crooks of my friends’ folded legs. The blurry eyes, the bathrobes, the slow wake-up of the extremely fortunate.

Yeah, it didn’t suck.

I grew up in a painfully frugal family but my friend showed me more. She shared her life, her home, dinners with her family, her dogs, her world and I’m grateful.

She gave me a glimpse of how it feels to be rich, and it’s beautiful.