Over the weekend I got to go out to a nightclub with this sign on the wall:

It’s funny how being jammed into a totally oversold club and having beer sloshed on my feet can have the effect of making me feel like I can breathe again.  I suppose it’s the magic mix of having no one to be responsible for (except myself, which apparently I forgot about if the way I felt when I woke up is anything to go by) and doing something that I used to do when I wasn’t anyone’s mom.

It’s not that I’m wanting to go back and be twenty-three again (well, maybe a teeny bit sometimes, but it’s strictly for the body), but I do find myself wishing that I’d done a better job of being twenty-three when I was there.  And it is this, this very feeling, that causes parents to lecture kids about choices and planning and thinking things through.  The longer I parent; the more of those moments I have where I relate so completely to my own parents, the more I realize that so many things can’t be taught.  Some stuff you just have to go through to learn.  At least, that is true for me. 

On Sunday Willow and I went to visit with Gwendomama, Supergirl, and Bubbles (who is in need of a new name).  We had a nice, low-key afternoon, that passed too quickly while we talked and I ate all the food in the whole house.  (It was good.  I was powerless.)   We were sent home with some fantastic little wooden toys and what was left of the excellent pumpkin bread, which, uh, didn’t make it home.  Again, I was powerless, and Willow helped some.

And now, I must get my non-stage diving ass to the school to pick up the kids.