Time Marches On...

So yes, I know it is Saturday and I don't usually post on weekends, but I am in an unusually good mood today, and last night I said to my girlfriend, "This is definitely good blog material!" so I had to put it out there before the mood passes or I forget. As it is right now, I am listening to good party music and waiting to leave for the Cubs game in AWESOME seats (remind me to tell you about the whole e-bay selling the extra two tickets fiasco later) and hoping to God their streak continues and they beat the Cards for the third time in a row. And if they don't, well, at least we won the first two. Hopefully I will have some pretty good pics to post from today.

Anyway, last night my friend Julie and I went out for her birthday. I got tickets to see Collective Soul at Lincoln Park Zoo. Yes, I said "Lincoln Park Zoo." See, apparently they have a "Jammin'at the Zoo" thing after zoo hours that benefits the zoo and the animals. Since I love both Collective Soul and animals, I thought it sounded like fun. So I got the tickets, and Julie and I went. We brought a blanket and a couple chairs and it was a lot more crowded than either of us expected. But we managed to find a nice grassy spot off to the side and set up camp. (Thank God we didn't have to sit on the dirt/wood chip area or the cement.)

So we spent a lot of time just talking, catching up, you know, the usual girl stuff. Eventually during the opening act, we both looked up and were amazed at how much MORE crowded it had become. But what was even more interesting was the crowd itself. It consisted of mostly people in their mid thirties to I'd say fifties, even, and there were a lot of families with babies or little kids. So although it was an enthusiastic crowd, it was pretty mellow compared to concerts I've been to in the past. Which was nice, because you didn't have to shout to be heard and nobody was drunk and stupid or annoying or anything, and where we sat we could hear the music well enough without injuring our eardrums. It was really cool.

Then came the part I had to blog about.

At one point, we decided to go get some food and use the bathroom. We meandered through the crowds to the food court building, got our food, then Julie watched our food while I went to use the bathroom.

I didn't mean to laugh, in fact, I tried hard to hide it, but it was really hard to keep a straight face. There I was, standing in line in the women's room, looking at the other people waiting and the people leaving. Every single woman was at least in their mid to late thirties, a lot probably in their forties, and they all had done the same thing I had done that night: they had worn something they thought made them look hot- something maybe low cut, or tighter than usual - put on more makeup than they usually ever wore, and obviously had taken a little more care with their hairstyle - whether it was in a ponytail or down or whatever. Now, in my own defense, I didn't dress sleazy or anything, just a top with a bit more cleavage showing than normal. I did have on makeup, and originally I had spent an hour flat ironing my hair, but had since given up and pulled it into a half-assed ponytail since it was so damn hot. I did see some women quite obviously old enough to have grown children wearing skimpy tight short dresses, and one woman with a shirt slit all the way down to her navel. But it struck me that every single one of us was doing the same thing - attending a rock concert and trying to recapture that feeling of being in your twenties, and sexy, and having a good time.

Every one of us had at one time been a wild young thing that went to concerts and picked up guys and drank and danced and maybe kissed a stranger in the mix. Every one of us had thought longingly of those years while we got ready for the concert, hoping that maybe somehow that feeling of youth and recklessness would somehow be restored by wearing a little more eyeliner than usual. And the truth is, all we were was middle-aged women who were kidding ourselves.

It was funny, though, because when it came right down to it, I didn't really want to go back to that girl. I was having fun with my friend, I wasn't going deaf, and I was still sober enough to drive home. Ok, sometimes I'll look back wistfully on my youth, but I think it is more important to enjoy life itself in the now.

I'm sure I 'll still pull out the "cleavage shirt" every once in a while, and I'll still mug for the mirror while I put on makeup I'm not used to wearing now and then, but I'll try to remember that I am in my mid-thirties and not in my twenties. And though I may on occasion get lucky enough to look younger, I will remember to act my age, because I'm not a kid anymore. Which isn't to say I can't still have fun...