You Can Really Taste The Kale!
It doesn't seem that long ago that I was lounging in some guy's apartment drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. My tattered sandal from the summer before dangled playfully from my big toe while I quipped and flirted with the best of them, waiting for my life to begin. How quickly that lazy wondering turned to solid drugery!
My life is not terrible. Not by a long shot. But I do tend to romanticize the days of endless pontification and intoxication where I was able to sit in grand hormonal judgement of the rest of this crazy world. I wasn't exactly happy then, either but at least I knew everything! Now I feel awash in a choppy sea, swimming from deserted island to deserted island looking for someone who knows anything. Anything at all! As long as they are over the age of 30. I don't trust those young 'uns. They're out to replace me.
If it weren't for my antibiotics and sense of adult propriety I'd be drunk as a skunk and raising hell in the Slope right now. All by myself. I'd be stumbling from parking meter to parking meter mumbling about purpose and destiny. Instead I am nursing a tall glass of seltzer and letting my stomach digest my evening meal: angel hair pasta topped with a tomato- zucchini sauce featuring crushed red pepper and pesto made with Lacinto kale. All organic, of course.
Last night Tom and I went out with another couple and we left our kids with a sitter. I can count on one hand the number of times Tom and I have gone out with another couple. It felt ridiculously civilized. But I KNOW these people very well and I know that individually each one of these people is nuts. Together, however, it felt very much like how I imagine my parents' evenings out must have been. Except I am pretty sure that our food was better or at least a touch more adventurous. We spent most of the night talking about food, restaurants, wine, cooking and cooking shows. It was a nice night out with accidental "foodies". None of us planned to be this way, but living in close proximity to such amazing food tends to make you a bit of a connesieur.
At one point during the evening of polite conversation I looked around and realized that there were people at the table who had, at one time, played with explosives for fun. There were people who had had wild sex lives, who had been adventurous travellers, who had taken drugs, done stupid things and lived to tell the tales. There were people who had had brushes with fame and who had met more people than they could count and yet, here we were. The four of us were sharing niceties over a small plate of salami and olives discussing our kids and sharing war stories of our lives in the trenches of urban parenting. What the hell?
I don't regret being here. I just don't know where to go from here. I don't know whether I should just sink easily into this comfortable place filled with family and day to day living, maybe have another kid and get a dog. Or do I fight it kicking and screaming? Do I refuse the mommy yoke and forge ahead, feeling guilty that I might be shortchanging my son by being unpredicatable and a little selfish? Do I have another kid anyway and then sick the two of them on each other? Do I fight to stay in this city that I love when I don't often get the chance to get out and appreciate it? What the hell am I doing? What am I modeling here? Indecison? Oh, that's great.
Yeah. I hate to be a poor little rich girl, but sometimes having too many choices is really limiting,
My life is not terrible. Not by a long shot. But I do tend to romanticize the days of endless pontification and intoxication where I was able to sit in grand hormonal judgement of the rest of this crazy world. I wasn't exactly happy then, either but at least I knew everything! Now I feel awash in a choppy sea, swimming from deserted island to deserted island looking for someone who knows anything. Anything at all! As long as they are over the age of 30. I don't trust those young 'uns. They're out to replace me.
If it weren't for my antibiotics and sense of adult propriety I'd be drunk as a skunk and raising hell in the Slope right now. All by myself. I'd be stumbling from parking meter to parking meter mumbling about purpose and destiny. Instead I am nursing a tall glass of seltzer and letting my stomach digest my evening meal: angel hair pasta topped with a tomato- zucchini sauce featuring crushed red pepper and pesto made with Lacinto kale. All organic, of course.
Last night Tom and I went out with another couple and we left our kids with a sitter. I can count on one hand the number of times Tom and I have gone out with another couple. It felt ridiculously civilized. But I KNOW these people very well and I know that individually each one of these people is nuts. Together, however, it felt very much like how I imagine my parents' evenings out must have been. Except I am pretty sure that our food was better or at least a touch more adventurous. We spent most of the night talking about food, restaurants, wine, cooking and cooking shows. It was a nice night out with accidental "foodies". None of us planned to be this way, but living in close proximity to such amazing food tends to make you a bit of a connesieur.
At one point during the evening of polite conversation I looked around and realized that there were people at the table who had, at one time, played with explosives for fun. There were people who had had wild sex lives, who had been adventurous travellers, who had taken drugs, done stupid things and lived to tell the tales. There were people who had had brushes with fame and who had met more people than they could count and yet, here we were. The four of us were sharing niceties over a small plate of salami and olives discussing our kids and sharing war stories of our lives in the trenches of urban parenting. What the hell?
I don't regret being here. I just don't know where to go from here. I don't know whether I should just sink easily into this comfortable place filled with family and day to day living, maybe have another kid and get a dog. Or do I fight it kicking and screaming? Do I refuse the mommy yoke and forge ahead, feeling guilty that I might be shortchanging my son by being unpredicatable and a little selfish? Do I have another kid anyway and then sick the two of them on each other? Do I fight to stay in this city that I love when I don't often get the chance to get out and appreciate it? What the hell am I doing? What am I modeling here? Indecison? Oh, that's great.
Yeah. I hate to be a poor little rich girl, but sometimes having too many choices is really limiting,
posted by Bree O'Connor at 6:58 PM
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