The night began with one of those places that serves endless meat. Let this sink in . Endless. Meat.
Vegetarians? No point in even darkening their door. If you aren't a carnivore, you should just cleverly move along in your search for kale.
Not to mention the endless array of side items. I joked that after my Survivor feast-like eating, surely in my stomach, in the crevices along the meat, there would be space for two creamy bowls of lobster bisque. Like stomach Tetris. All spaces utilized. Of course there would be room.
By the end of the meal, I was nauseous. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Meals like this only come along once a decade. All you can eat gourmet food? Yes, please.
After lots of good conversation and regaining our momentum, we left the restaurant. But as one of my friends once joked, I guarantee if I had rubbed my belly and peered at it lovingly, I could have easily parked in the expectant mother spot at Buy Buy Baby.
After the meal, this group was going dancing! Turning 40 is, seriously, a big deal.
We went to a local place to chat, listen to the band, and dance. We were definitely older than many in the place, but not the oldest by any means.
At one point in the evening, because they were playing all of the right music, all of the ladies hit the floor and began dancing like it was nobody's business. Unabashed, happy dancing.
And then, after a half hour or so,
I happened to notice a group of very young girls at a table laughing. It didn't take me long to realize they were laughing at us.
At first it stung a little. Were they laughing because we were older? Or maybe because I wasn't a size 2? One of them even apparently made a comment to one of our husbands, not knowing it was one of our husbands, that we were funny. It dampened my spirits for all of about 30 seconds, and then I resumed my less than perfect dancing.
Later on, after a wonderful night with wonderful friends, I thought about it again, and it hit me.
I don't think they were laughing because we had twenty years on them, or even because we weren't all stick, model thin.
I think they were laughing because we were amusing and shocking to watch because we had absolutely no inhibitions. We didn't care that we were older. We didn't care that we weren't size zeroes. We didn't care that we didn't dance as well as Jennifer Lopez. And we certainly didn't care if a table of twenty- somethings self- consciously huddling in a booth found us amusing.
We had moved from that phase of life where you walk into a room wondering if people like you, and had moved into the phase where you walk into a room and wonder who you like.
The term 40 and fabulous has a lot of truth behind it. I think, or at least I choose to think, that they were laughing because we were a rare sighting to them. They are at the age where you worry when you leave to go to the bathroom if your friends are secretly saying you should audition for Bert on Sesame Street if you don't hurry up and get those eyebrows waxed. They are at the phase where you won't dance in front of a room full of people, because heaven forbid, what of your dress shows a little back fat or what if you lack perfect rhythm.
See, my group was past all that. We are imperfect, as everyone is, but also past the point of letting it dictate our actions. That is what is surprisingly great about the 40s.
It's always a little sad to me to see people desperately holding on to their youth. Becoming obsessed with their imperfections to the point that they are not truly happy in their own skin. I've always thought that the more obsessively you fight to look super young, the older you seem to look. The ones who look young and happy, are the ones enjoying their families and friends and life in general.
These people should be embracing life, and laughing. And as we know, like in Hollywood, some are so obsessed with looking younger that they are to the point that you can't even tell when they actually ARE laughing.
I'm not suggesting that health and how you present yourself to the world aren't important.
I'm just saying that in your forties you begin to realize that life exists outside the realm of self-obsession.
You begin to distance yourself from the people pointing fingers in the booth, and surround yourself with the happy ones on the dance floor.
See, now I know why those girls were laughing. They hadn't seen
many like us before. This laughing, carefree, imperfect group of women not caring a thing about what the world thought if them. Only having fun...together.
Someday those 20-something girls will get it.
But one thing is for sure. None of them had as much fun as we did.
And I would like to change that saying, "Dance as if no one is watching."
I say, "Dance like everyone is watching...and feel GREAT about it!"
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