So a few weeks ago I went to a bar for the first time in forever. I think it may have been first time I've gone to a nightclub of any sort since I moved here. (I know what you're thinking. Crazy old bat sure doesn't get out much, does she? Shut up.) It was a going away get-together for a coworker who took a job on the other side of the mountains. She's headed west to hang out with the Moss People on the Seattle side. Normally I don't go to these things, but my screaming monsters children had been begging for the chance to torture maim and hold for ransom spend the night at Grams and Poppy's house, so I decided to paint my toenails pink and have a little night out on the town.
People-watching is one of my favorite pastimes. I don't often get to indulge in it, my business trips are rare lately and I'm not a big fan of the mall. Digging up broken irrigation pipes, cleaning stalls, fixing fences and mowing the lawn fill my time nicely but don't offer up too many flavors of passersby to stare at. As far as prime locations go, bars are second only to airports in the variety and flavor of human they offer up for your viewing pleasure. This night was no exception.
When I was in my twenties I would often be consumed with envy in the dance club environment. I was always the tall, gawky girl who needed to lose a few pounds. I didn't appreciate my assets nor did I know how to dress to emphasize the positive. Those pretty women who seemed to know how to naturally exist in their own bodies baffled and shamed me. I wanted to be like them and didn't have the first clue how. With twenty more years under my belt, my outlook is completely different. I know what I have, I know what I don't have. I'm not going anywhere to try and attract a date, and I get a whole different level of enjoyment watching the young people, bright and energetic, attractive and heady with the rush of youth. They have so much life in them, and new to adulthood, they are enjoying the freedom of what is probably their first apartment, no curfew, the right to legally enjoy adult beverages, the change from those high school partnerships to the possibility that every person you meet is The One.
I envy their youth but not in the same way I used to envy the prettier women. They have it all ahead of them; my bad choices are all behind me. I have fewer choices left to make. Their world is wide open. I wish I could take those awkward girls standing back waiting for someone to come ask them to dance and tell them to learn to appreciate their assets, to dance regardless of whether someone asks them. To trust their friends, even though sometimes they might get hurt. To love without fear, to never accept less than the real deal just because they're scared if they don't marry THIS one then a better one might never come along.
The other part of the bar crowd are the people MY age. There aren't many of them. They stand out, don't they? I notice that they fall into two categories - those who act their age and those who don't. In my humble forty-something opinion, 'acting my age' means that of course I can dance if I want - but those stripper poles on the dance floor are for someone half my age to gyrate on. I don't try to dress as if I have the body of a twenty year old unless I happen to have a forty year old body that looks like Demi Moore - and I don't. I don't overdo it and get drunk in a room full of people half my age. I enjoy the conversation with the people I'm with. I enjoy myself but I'm realistic. I'm not in the market for a date or a pick up and frankly, even if I were, this is not a place where I would meet that person.
Its not a matter of being a fuddy duddy. In part its a fear of looking ridiculous (well based, if you ask me. I remember some of the stuff I've done over the years after drinking too much in bars. Stories for later - or never.) and in part a sense that I have of wanting to age with some grace and dignity. I don't know that I qualify as a sexy old lady - I hope I do - but I DO know that I'm NOT a sexy YOUNG thing. For women that can carry it off, it looks wonderful. But not everyone can, and I know my limits.
Part of me wanted so badly to go and whisper to the drunk forty-something lady in a tube top writhing on the stripper pole, "I know the alcohol told you this was a good idea...but really, its not. You're a very attractive person but this? Is not attractive. Not." I wanted her to respect herself a little bit more. And I guess that part of it is that watching someone act without dignity makes me a little uncomfortable. Well, OK, if I have to admit it, a LOT uncomfortable. What I can't decide is if that says more about me in not a good way than it does about her.
A night out on the town amongst beautiful flowers. It was a fun night, even if I turned into a pumpkin at midnight and even though in the end it made me feel a little bit sad. Because I think I know who I should be, but I wonder if my insistence on maintaining my dignity makes me an old fart. And does that other woman's ability to discard hers, does that make her sad or does it make her brave? And I wonder why, at forty, I'm still trying to decide how I SHOULD feel about it and can't just accept what I think and feel.
At the end of the day, though, I'm not the one who woke up with a headache, or with a stranger in my bed. And that tells me that maybe - just maybe - I'm on to something.
