The Perks of Being an Adult

…Or at least an older adult.

I know, I know. My usual refrain is that adulthood sucks. Don’t get me wrong – it isn’t just paying the bills or having to work, or the general drudgery of having to do things you don’t really want to do for the better part of your day (like for instance, getting up this morning). It is the responsibility I feel; the thought that I am making decisions that may affect my children’s lives for better or for worse; that maybe I’m not being the best role model all the time.

Okay. It also sucks to have to pay the bills and to look like I know what I’m doing. And to have to discipline the children when they are having fits very similar to what I am doing in my own head but because I am an adult must keep to myself. No more temper tantrums for me. Nope. No sirree.

But, even though there are parts of adulthood that really do suck (it’s tax time again people!), I would never want to go back to being a kid. Not even back into my late teens or early twenties. That really did suck. You woud have to club me over the head, tie me up and gag me to ever get me to ride in that particular time machine.

Because, I don’t know if this was how it was for you, but I was a pimply, chubby vortex of self-doubt and rage. (I know- I sound like I was just as much fun as a cavity.) After high school and in my first couple of years of university, I used to drink a lot. I wasn’t an alcoholic or anything so drastic, but drinking helped me socialize. Many drinks got me on the dance floor where I could let loose. Of course, the morning after was a whole lot of fun. Bed spins, and nicotine hands and a need for greasy food to absorb all the alcohol just contributed to the whole vicious circle.

Now, this was a good 15 years ago. I hadn’t gone to a bar in about that much time (not counting a weird night on the town in Toronto a couple of years ago when I went to celebrate my sister’s 30th birthday and was shocked and appalled at all the meat market grinding going on), since I got together with my husband and had better things to do. He is not a dancer and I never really liked bars anyway- the fact that I needed to be really drunk to be in them should have tipped me off.

But lately, I’ve been feeling restless. I frequently dance around the house with my daughters, which, by the way is a lot of fun and I would never stop, but I was needing something more in that department. I was needing to get some serious YaYas out. But I don’t like rave or techno music to dance to- can’t seem to sink my teeth into it. I think I should have been born a decade or two earlier, ’cause I can only really seem to move to old 70s and 80s stuff. Enter Pop 80s night at La Tulipe.

I went last week with a couple of friends (some who are in the midst of difficult marital separations). We hardly drank anything (in fact, my one and only gin and tonic got taken away before I could even finish half of it). But, holy cripes did we dance our faces off (not literally of course- that would be gross).

And this is the part of being an adult that I love. I don’t care anymore. I mean, I care. But I don’t care what people think of me, least of all the sweet young things in their quaint tight clothes who can hardly move for wanting to be sexy so much. If I want to dance, I’m gonna. If I want to be a corny 80s, side-stepping fool à la Molly Ringwald, I’m gonna. If I want to belt out The Smiths singing how they know how Joan of Arc felt at the top of my lungs while spinning faster than a galaxy, I’m gonna. So there. All the other boring adult stuff is worth it for this realization.

I say it again. So there. And I am definitely going back to Pop 80s. If only they could stop playing Rick Astley, though. Even I have my limits…