Is Adulthood Stealing Some of Your “Groovy?”

It’s Thoughty Thursday so y’all get to enjoy a slice of whatever’s circling my busy brain.

OK, here it is…

In the few years since Baby Girl was born, I’ve grown a little worried that motherhood — hell, adulthood — has stolen some of my grooviness. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still shag my honey at a moment’s notice. He still thinks I’m the cat’s meow. That’s not what I’ve been fretting about.

Shakira, channeling Jenny's leap toward the morning caffeine...

It’s just that the only thing I’ve been shaking lately is my kitchen rug. The only leaping going on is toward my coffee pot each morning. 

Back in the day you’d catch me dancing on any available flat surface (get your mind out of the gutter, people) – I’m talking bars, tables, benches, booths.

Come on, I know some of you were up there on the bars and tables in your town. Don’t try to act all innocent…

I’d dance to anything from Billy Idol to Garth Brooks, from Salt N’ Pepa to Led Zeppelin. If there was a beat and some words, I was shaking my cash and prizes.

When I saw this scene from Something Borrowed, I started laughing because this was soooo something I would do with my BFFs.

(Do you see that Kate Hudson, channeling me??? I know we kind of hated her in the book but this scene ROCKS!)

This whole fretting business started a few months back when we went out for my Hubby’s birthday. We did dinner at a local restaurant, followed by bar-hopping with a bunch of our friends.

It was our first time out for an entire evening since our baby was born and it was . . . effervescent. Intoxicating, lively, fun.

My girls and I were dressed up and feeling all groovy and sassy with ourselves. We kept trying to find a dance place in our part of Orange County that didn’t charge an outrageous cover and had enough room for us on the dance floor. With good music. When did that get to be such a tall order??

When we got to the third stop, the guys gave us that look that said “this is the final resting place for the night and we’d better whoop it up as hard as we could right here.”  I texted the babysitter that we’d be home in the next hour or so.

After the waitress brought our drinks, my girlfriend, Alicia, looked around at the 50’s looking dining room with the adjoining back room dance floor and said, “The only thing saving this dive is that they know how to pour a damn fine drink.”

I didn’t mind that it was loud. I didn’t mind that it was crowded with the reality TV replicas you see all over “the OC.” I didn’t even mind that most of the people I could see on the dance floor had no rhythm…that just makes it more entertaining.

What I minded was that the DJ had his mental channel tuned to techno, techno, techno and never budged the dial in the hour we were there.

Photo credit: DJTimeline.com

At one point, I went to the doorway of the room that held the tiny postage stamp of dance floor and peeked in. Through the smoke machine and the strobe lights (I’m not kidding) I spied a heavyset DJ wearing a helmet and headphones (still not kidding), bobbing his chin over his sound board. This guy was in his ZONE.

My other girlfriend, Clair, was already out on the dance floor, shaking it like a groupie. She loves techno. The only thing we can figure is that it must work like Ritalin and smooth out her A.D.D.

When Clair started twirling and waving to me, I waved back and did something I’ve never done before. Me, Jenny…the girl who loves to dance. I backed away from the doorway and returned to my table.

I just could NOT get any closer to music that made me feel like my eyeballs were exploding in their sockets. Looking in that room, I felt “older” for the first time and I started fretting…

Holy cow, what if motherhood stole my groove?? What if my “get-out-and-dance” got up and went during labor or one of the endless nights of teething? Yikes.

When I sat down, Alicia took one look at me and poked me in the arm with her mojito. “What’s the matter?”

“Oh my God…this music is making my eyeballs leak,” I said. “It’s kind of scaring me.”

She slurped the last of her drink and slammed down the glass. “I know!!!” Waving her hands in the air, she yelled over the music, “Give me some Gaga, some 80’s, some disco – something with words. But this techno, techno, techno is killing me.”

Is it just the two of us, or has dance music run amok? Have words left the dance floor? Are the responsibilities of work, family and this endlessly crappy economy sucking away our “inner hotties” and leaving a hot mess? I need some reassurance here, people!

What’s the status of the dance floors in your neck of the woods? What music gets your feet tapping? What’s the state of your “groovy?” Enquiring minds always want to know these things here at More Cowbell.

Jenny