This weekend, I am not at my major college reunion wearing all manner of school color attire. I am not at the film festival where a sitcom I edited is being shown. I was not at my son's school craft fair or at a Broadway matinee or at the first performance of my friend's new show. And you would think that with all the places I wasn't, I must not have been much of anywhere. And you would be wrong. Because for every hundred possible things to do each weekend, there are hundreds more that end up coming first. And the hundreds seem to increase exponentially with the number and age of the people in your household. So, while I was at none of those places above, I was in multiple boroughs supporting biking and baseball and musical theater. I was at assorted train stations and bus stops traveling up, down, and across. I was at a grocery store stocking up for the week. And I was at a party of dressed-up grownups, where I realized I can actually be a dressed-up grownup.
Did I miss things in the places where I wasn't? Absolutely. I will never get that reunion (and the accompanying "hi, how are you, what are you doing now?" conversations) back (not to mention all the wacky clothes I would have acquired). I will have to wait another year (or at least until the next fair) for my fill of crafty stuff. I will have to rely on reports from the film festival.
In exchange, I saw my son score the tying run and helped him go biking with a friend. I got my daughters to sleepovers and auditions. And yes, I was a grownup, perhaps not among the grownups who were my college past, but the grownups of my present. As my daughter pointed out, "Mommy, you have friends!"
And that's just how life is. Which is why sometimes, no, most of the time, really BEING where you are matters a whole lot more than bemoaning where you aren't. I will live without orange clothes and handmade earrings. And I will get to live WITH the memory of a child running to home and so much more.
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