The Change
As I walked the dog at 7.30am this morning, I began to think how things have changed in the last fifteen or so years…
…’cos fifteen years ago, the only walking I would have been doing at that hour in a morning would have been the ‘Walk of Shame’. (Obviously from the house of a steady, long term boyfriend because I’d forgotten to pack a change of clothes, if my mum’s reading this).
My much-loved, long, black, FM boots from my twenties have now been replaced with some SF boots (sensible flats) that are much more appropriate for the school run (and a darn sight more comfortable, I can tell you).
My pretty, plunge, push up bras have now traded places with pretty much anything that promises gravity-defying, industrial strength scaffolding and basically stops these puppies from resting on my stomach.
My thong has long since been changed for the more sensible ‘shortie’, my fear being that if I wore a thong after having three children, I’d need to send a search party in there to find it again (otherwise I may inadvertently find myself using it as tooth floss).
My smoky black eyeliner from my twenties has been swapped for a more flattering soft brown, which doesn’t settle in the lines round my eyes quite so obviously or make me feel so less Brigitte Bardot, more Gene Simmons.
I’ve gone from dancing on the tables at nightclubs to raving to the ‘Wiggle Song’ at toddler group (whether the children want to join in with me or not), and from colouring my hair for a change to colouring it out of necessity (as the wiry ones start to ‘boing’ up from my head of their own accord when it’s time to tell myself that ‘I’m worth it’).
I can’t look at the small tattoo of a scorpion on my stomach without having scary flashbacks of it looking like a huge, man-eating lobster each time I was pregnant and I’m the hypocrite who encourages my eldest son to get his homework ‘out of the way’ as soon as he gets home from school, trying to block the memories of sitting up until four, drinking gallons of coffee and propping my eyes open with matchsticks to cram for various exams through the years.
My only consolation is that I still laugh as much now as I did then, so I’ll not let the change bother me and carry on laughing until the inevitable time comes that I look at my children and realise that they’re no longer so much laughing WITH me, as AT me… 🙂