No Mother Left Behind

Recently I was talking to an old friend and she told me that she'd taken up pole dancing as a hobby. You know, pole dancing. Like the women do at the Bada Bing Club on the Sopranos (although my friend assures me she has a shirt on).

This is not some slutty friend who wears tight pants and low cut shirts and flirts with all the husbands. She's a fine, upstanding mother and a card-carrying member of the PTA. But another friend had encouraged her to join a class and now she was hooked. The thing, she told me, is that she felt like she had left so much of herself behind when she became a mother. And this was a way to recapture the part of her that used to love to dance and really let it all go at clubs. A part she really missed. And could now revisit. But now with platform shoes.

So of course I started obsessing about all of the aspects of myself that I had left behind. The part that liked to get shit-faced on beer at some divvy local bar on a Sunday afternoon. The part that actually had time to get into bed with a good book on Friday night - and stay up all night if it was good enough. The part that liked to go camping and would then stay up all night listening for bears. The part that could actually plan - and pull the trigger - on a trip to Europe.

But here's the encouraging part. Considering how much my life has changed, my list isn't raelly that long. And in just fifteen more years I'll be able to do it all again!