Saturday Nights

   Saturday night and, after hosting a dozen preschoolers and their respective parental units at my daughter’s fourth birthday party, I am pooped. I thought I would sit down and get through my umpteen emails, fold the laundry or perhaps pay some bills online, but I really can’t be bothered. After all, it IS Saturday night and even though the sun has set upon those crazy nights spent clubbing with girlfriends and staying out until the crack of dawn; this night should still represent more than attending to all the mundane tasks that could be done on any of the other 6 days of the week.  At least in writing this blog, I am satisfying my creative appetite as well as my desire to sit alone, in a quiet room, without anybody bugging the crap out of me.

 

   Ahh, Saturday nights! I do remember that kind of anxious, squishy feeling I would get in my stomach each time when I was getting ready for a night out. I think it was a combination of the intrigue of what kind of night was to lie ahead, coupled with the insecurity of how I would size up next to the other chicks at the bar or club. Was I dressed right? Was it going to be a good hair night or a bad hair night? Were we going to get past the velvet rope and into the hot new club? Oh, the dilemmas of an untethered, totally self-absorbed twenty-something! 

 

   I am glad for those experiences, but at the same time, I am so glad that they are behind me. Not only for the fact that, at the age of 45, it would be, like, 100 times harder to get behind those velvet ropes, but also, because I am so much more confident in who I am as a woman and what value I do have. In my twenties, I would put makeup on just to run out and get a gallon of milk. Hmm, not so much anymore. In fact, I am pretty darn comfortable going a whole day in my workout gear, without a smidge of makeup or any style to my hair and get through the marketing, lunch with a friend and school pickups. Not that I don’t care how I look, I just don’t care how you might think I look, which I think is a far better perspective from which to look (pun intended).

 

   And, just as God grants us grace through the aging process, allowing us to slowly wrinkle and sag, our social evolution follows a similar process. It’s not like you are out on the town each Saturday night and then, BAM! , living like a shut-in, experiencing no culture at all. No. The “clubbing” slowly evolves to late-night dinners out with friends, then to early dinners at the local Chilis Restaurant to avoid the crowds and get home in time for Saturday Night Live, to occasional barbeques with the kids in tow, only to arrive at writing blogs that really have no value, other than to give you a reason to not pay bills and fold laundry.

 

   Now, when the rare Saturday night pops up that I do have some cool plans, they are way more appreciated. Dinners taste better; the conversation is livelier, even a movie featuring Jennifer Lopez has merit. All this and without the anxiety and squishy stomach- a girl really couldn’t ask for more!

 

   So, girlfriend to girlfriend, my advice to you is wherever you might find yourself in this social progression, continue to covet your Saturday nights, with or without makeup and, if it is indeed spent at home, force yourself to look the other way to a mass of laundry.  I guarantee, with a little chill time under your belt, the mound will look less formidable Sunday morning.