The other night I went out like I haven’t gone out in years.
I joined a bunch of girlfriends for a bachelorette party. We went to the kind of place that gives you a paper bracelet for getting a table and stamps the inside of your wrist, that has a swing above the bar, that men try to hit on you until they realize they’re roughly a decade younger than you.
In all its trashy ridiculousness, we had fun.
The next morning I felt pretty miserable—not from a hangover (I had a cocktail at dinner but sipped water at the bar, thank goodness) but because I went to bed late, woke up in the middle of the night to get Peeper back to sleep and got up before dawn with a certain toddler who thought it’d be great timing to start her crib calisthenics routine.
Walking Finn and Peeper to the park that morning, I glanced down and noticed the stamp and bracelet. They seemed so incongruous to my reality as a mom that I had to laugh. Maybe my early-20s self would laugh that I get buzzed off one drink and can’t handle wearing heels for more than an hour and would rather hang out at the playground than barhop. But that’s where I am in my life, and I don’t mind. The view is pretty good from here.