It is a curious thing as I get older how my perspective on things shifts. I could wax philosophic on this and write a post that is touching or inspiring, but the truth is I have one particular perspective-shift in mind, and here it is: Mothers of small children are looking a whole lot younger. In fact, they're looking frighteningly like my age. In double fact, there are people I knew from high school that have children now. Holy heck.
I have been marginally aware of this for a while. Every summer seems to bring more and more status updates and photo albums on facebook featuring weddings and babies. Don't get me wrong, here. I have nothing against weddings and babies. I'd like to have my own nauseatingly estrogen-laced albums and updates someday. SOMEDAY, but not TO-day.
I'm not even out of school yet. I'm racking up degrees like points in Space Invaders...okay, that's an exaggeration. I'm awful at Space Invaders. And I only have two degrees thus far - the third one's in the making. I guess you could say it's MY bun in the oven. I hope I'm ready to pop soon.
Monday heralded the beginning of REAL dance classes at my old ballet studio. I had been taking a summer class, but it's been tedious to say the least. The same ol' boring routines over and over every single week. I wanted choreography, dang it! So, I was looking forward to Fall classes since that meant I'd be taking lessons from the teacher I've had since I was seven or eight years old and I'd be in a class with people MY age, instead of my parents' ages.
I was excited and arrived twenty minutes early. The tiny parking lot was crammed with minivans and SUVs. That should have clued me in, really, but I didn't think much on it. I knew there'd be some dance class or another going on and wasn't at all surprised to see parents' vehicles. It's the number and type of vehicles that I should have paid attention to. The older the girls get, the fewer there are in class, usually. A sad truth. Dancing is either no longer cool or there are too many other after-school activities, so it gets dropped.
But there's always more than enough three year olds to go around. It's the biggest group and is usually divided into two classes.
I didn't think about any of that. I just thought, "Woohoo! High school / College girl dance class!" and flung the door open enthusiastically.
Pink. PINK PINK PINK PINK PINK! Crowded, loud mommies chirping excitedly to one another. One daddy standing, carrying on a conversation with another mommy across the cramped room. There was no room to sit or even stand. The one scrap of empty floor space wasn't worth the raging hurricane of estrogen and moaning, wailing, bored siblings of ballerinas. I ran back outside and hid in the car.
I used to help teach the three year old class at that studio. Why was I so intimidated? I reflected upon it and remembered that I had always kept my dance bag in the actual studio so I didn't have to deal with the waiting room. But that wasn't what nearly knocked me flat when I opened the door. I bit my lip, mentally searching for the answer.
Some brat sibling's wailing got louder and I realized a mommy was carrying the kid out to the car for a time-out or something. I watched as she stuck him in the passenger seat and sat next to him. That's when it struck me. The brat's mom, who has at least one other kid still dancing inside, is around my age! I hyperventilated a little, cranked up the music (Lyle Lovett), and sent the studio owner a facebook message informing her that I was intimidated by her waiting room today. My class started at 6:15. I waited until 6:17 when I saw more minivans and SUVs pull out of the lot before I crept in, shoved my feet in my ballet slippers and scampered into the studio where I worked out my self-crisis in aggressive tendus to music that got increasingly faster (apparently I'm the first person ever to call the dance teacher out on that point).
I imagine someday I'll be one of those frazzled mommies with a minivan or SUV cramming my daughter in pink tights and leotards. But, in the words of Aragorn, "Today is not that day!" Hannon-Eru.
(Picture Day: 2003)