Day 1: Girls Gone Not So Wild

I remember thinking that getting older and having kids meant it was time to hang up your dancing shoes. Like the fun ones you wear when you want to go out and get really crazy. And, oh the horror of that thought. Getting old.

Last weekend, I left my kids and husband for the first time in about four years. I packed up my hottest heels, brushed the crumbs out of my purse and set off for a weekend of debauchery. Or at least something in the neighborhood of debauchery.

Met two of my BFFs in NOLA for the weekend. These are two girls I lived with during my stint in Colorado (grad school, work, etc.) and have remained friends with over the last 10 years. (Wow. Ok, I just bugged myself out with that last 10-year sentence.) We all live in different parts of the country, but have been in each other's weddings and continue to have this bond based in large part on...farts. As in 11-year-old-boy-humor farts. And poop. I'm not kidding. Thirty-something-year-old women who e-mail, call, text, etc. each other about farts.

At any rate, I was ready. Ready for some serious eating, serious farting, serious partying and serious female bonding.

Sometimes in my day-to-day life as Rosana, The Wife and Mom, it's easy to forget. I'm busy caring for other smaller (and sometimes larger) creatures in my life and without meaning to, I forget that fun-seeking, hard-partying, fart-loving girl from days of yore.

And so I set off in search of her. We shopped, we laughed, we ate, we talked, we analyzed, we joked, we reminisced...I know what you're thinking now. "She rediscovered that long-lost young woman that has been pushed aside by family and motherhood."

Wrong-o.

Bitch is gone. Ok. correction. She is still there, but not in the same way. Didn't even make it past midnight on either night. There was lots of eating and then back to hotel to sleep. Then up early to walk around the city. Then more eating. Then more sleeping. That hard-partying girl who used to run around mooning people after leaving the bar at 3 a.m.? She done packed up her shit and left the premises. Not that I really expected to moon anyone in New Orleans, but I did think I'd possibly get a little more raucous without niblets around.

But, I surprised myself. Even without the kids right there in my face...I'm still a mom. And older. It's a funny thing when you get older. It's quieter. Not like in a boring way either. Just in a more peaceful way.

I had one of the best times of the past year on this trip, and there were no crazy stories to bring home (beyond a naughty trip to a lingerie store and, hello, we were buying stuff to wear for the guys we married. Ooooooh, soooooo crazy).

I didn't come home hungover with some insane confession to make to my husband about showing my tits in the streets of New Orleans. Instead, I came home well-rested, reinvigorated and...happy. I had a couple mornings of sleeping in, ate meals without getting up to cut someone's meat or refill milk, and engaged in adult conversation minus that oh-so-familiar tugging, poking, pulling sensation, which, if ignored, can devolve into full-on screeching.

Moral of the story? Getting older, having a family, etc. does mean changes. The surprise for me is that not only am I ok with those changes, but I'm pretty amped about them. So, am I Mother Theresa now? Not quite.

Would Mother Theresa wear these shoes?




Shebanga.