Saggy arms and wrinkled faces…

So yesterday I meant to write about this bachelorette party I went to, but instead ended up pasting in my past rants about age. Of course my observations from my night out with the “girls” were also going to be about age. (You know it’s weird, as I sit here typing, twice I have typed rage instead of age and had to backspace and type it over. That’s a Freudian slip if I’ve ever seen one.) Anyway, Friday night, I went out to some clubs with my two daughters, a friend, and one of their friends. It was sort of a mini-bachelorette party for my youngest daughter who is getting married next week.

If you’ve read anything in this diary so far, you might have noticed that I have sort of an unusual family set up. I’ve been married twice, gave birth to two daughters from my first marriage, then remarried and gave birth to a son. My current (second) husband is 9 years younger than me so that makes for some odd dynamics. Being 27 and married, my oldest daughter has an adorable little toddler so I was a grandmother at age 45 and my husband was a grandfather at age 36. We haven’t seen my first husband since my girls were 5 and 9, so the girls made the independent decision to take on my second husband’s last name. It was weird. My oldest was going into junior highschool and filled out all her papers with her step-father’s last name! I didn’t expect it, but was very happy about it… so that’s what my other daughter did too and that’s how it stayed until they married/will get married next week.

So, the bachelor party my husband hosted and went to last night was actually for our future son-in-law and the bachelorette party I went to on Friday night was for my youngest (23 year old) daughter. I’m also her matron of honor because we are really close and very much alike. We frustrate and annoy each other easily, but have a bond that I believe supercedes the normal mother-daughter bond.

My daughter is exceptionally lovely. Her looks have been commented on many times. She is slim and tall with beautiful eyes and a graceful carriage. As a mother, I find this equally wonderful and appalling since I seem to notice everyone who looks at her, from the fine young men to the lecherously grinning old ones. When I see the balding gray-haired guys trying to catch her eye, I just want to slug them.

We decided to go out to some clubs to celebrate my daughter’s last weekend of singlehood. She dressed up in leather and boots, looking classy if somewhat dominatrixxy.. (a new word.) Her best friend also looked great, all made up with her hair down and flowing. My oldest daughter was a little more conservative. Somehow you tend to get into that mode when you’re a young married mother, and it’s a nice one in which to be. Our other friend is also a youngish married mom so was also conservative. I’m a grandma (geez) but I did up my hair, make-up, and wore a somewhat youthful dress.

I’m not lying when I say people often mistake me for my daughters’ sister. I was even carded once when I was forty by a person who got nasty with me when I laughed and thought she was joking! So, I didn’t feel too obviously old to be with them, but I certainly didn’t feel like the young clubbing type.

When I was in my twenties I used to go to clubs. I had been to discos but was never into the music. I did like clubs with live rock bands, though, and used to enjoy going dancing and flirting with men. It’s fun to dress up and feel attractive. I used to target the musicians with my flirtations and notched my belt a few times. But that was back in the seventies, when safe-sex was unheard of because making love was better than making war. Does anybody remember that? Promiscuity was known as being a loving free woman. In some respects that was better than today, but in many others, our return to a conservative viewpoint is an improvement.

Of course when I went out to the clubs in the old days, they were packed with young women of like-mindedness, looking for fun or love or admiration. Now I look around the clubs and see many of those same women there.

I don’t mean the exact same women, I mean aged clubbers who are now divorced and trying to recoup some sort of life and/or self-esteem. And I had never seen so many fashion-mistakes in my life!

Go to the next entry for the nasty stuff….