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Home > Blogs > Adventures in Motherhood > Archives > 2010 > March > 18 > Entry
Trip back in time can give you a hangover
As we get older, we tend to trade in activities for others according to how they fit with our lives.
When we’re growing up, we go from hopscotch to jump rope to bicycling to driving. We go from playing with friends, to hanging out, partying and standing up for each other in weddings. But there is no greater shift in how we spend our free time than after we have kids.
Instead of seeing movies and going to clubs, our days are spent feeding, changing or driving kids to soccer tournaments.
For years, our wants and needs take a big backseat to those of the kids and the family unit as a whole.
Overall, it’s not a bad way to spend our time; in fact, these are some of the best days of our lives.
But, it also is nice to retain a glimmer of our former free-wheeling selves and do some of the things we used to enjoy.
Some parents are better at this than others. For example, my husband has managed to go out and have a beer with his best friend once a week throughout our nearly 11 years as parents.
I have not been as adept, but recently I have been working to change that.
Since my youngest son is about to turn 9, I figure it is OK if I spend some more time on my interests and less time trying to learn “Mario Kart.”
I am calling it grown-up-palooza.
To that end, I recently agreed to join a group of friends to hear a live band at a local bar. I can’t remember the last time I did that, especially on my own.
It was fun, but I found that the landscape (and possibly my perspective) had changed a little since my last venture out.
At the door, just as there used to be, there was a cover charge and someone was checking IDs.
Well, at least he was checking the IDs of the guys in front of me. I had mine in my hand with my money just in case they were checking everybody.
When the guy saw me ready, he smirked a little. He didn’t ask for my proof of age.
When I got inside, the band hadn’t started, but the crowd was already so thick that all I could think was “fire hazard.”
I was glad to see, though, that other than the two I followed in, the crowd didn’t look embarrassingly young — in fact, they looked a little, older than I’d imagined.
Then again, they might have been saying the same thing about me.
I spotted my friend on the other side of the room and headed to where she and her friends had set up camp. Thankfully, they had saved me a seat.
(It reminded me that, other than trying to find a table at Chuck E. Cheese on a snowy winter weekend, I am used to going to places where seats are easily acquired.)
Soon the band started. They sounded great, but I couldn’t believe how loud they were. Soon I got back into the old habit of squeezing in conversation between songs and sets.
That also gave me time to observe the scene more closely. It was like I was surrounded by distorted versions of the kids I went to school with.
They were dancing, drinking and getting rowdy, but just with a little more weight and and a little less hair. And some, I noticed, were not embarrassed to wear earplugs.
There was something these old kids were doing that I wasn’t used to, though. In place of their matches lighting up smoky rooms, the glow from their cell phones (and subsequent pictures) were punctuating the clear darkness.
The best part though was, like me, most appeared to be taking this opportunity to let loose and have fun. For all of us, it was probably a nice break from families and responsibilities, if just for a few hours.
At any rate, I figure all this renewed fun will probably take some getting used to. But I am willing to keep at it.
It is, after all, grown-up-palooza.
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