I am lucky to be related to some one who owns a dance studio. We enrolled the boys in tumbling.

They actually sat and watched my niece’s entire recital last May. When I asked them if they would want to do the tumbling class, like “those kids on the mats on the stage,” they started doing somersaults and were an enthusiastic yes.

I watched them smiling go into the studio with their instructor and I sat on a bench in between two women I went to high school with. I say high school. But in a small town (graduating class of 150) with very little movement in and out…we knew each other probably from the age of 5-ish.

They were actually two girls on softball, basket-ball, and soccer teams with me and each other at various times throughout our entire childhood. I wouldn’t say we were close friends, but we were close in a way that people who grow up in a small town playing sports with each were. We saw each other sweat, cry, and bleed over the years of playing sports together.

Their parents coached me at times and at other times my parents coached them. We gave each other rides and we knew each others strengths, and weaknesses. It’s hard to describe the bond of a small town. It’s like this connection that we all wish we didn’t have yet can’t possibly imagine living without. Or maybe that’s just me?!

Anyway. There we sat. It was surreal. We were all watching our kids on monitors. My sons and one of their sons were in tumbling together, and on another screen was the other one’s daughter in ballet class. We were relaxed in the way that people who know each other from the age of 5 can be.

“When did we become the Mom’s?” I asked as I sipped my coffee from my travel mug. We all leaned back against the wall staring straight ahead at the screens.

“And at dance class?!” one of them said in bewilderment and mild disgust.

“With boys no less,” I added laughing.

We were all female athletes. Now I danced for eleven years. So I didn’t think it was weird being at dance class. Well maybe…considering I have two sons.

But the girls I was with, and then in walked my sister, also a female jock, concurred. None of them could have imagined the pink sequined girls they bore. We all laughed and then sat back again and with a few questions and answers we were caught up on the last twenty years.

I sat there between those two thinking this is the most surreal moment. Watching our kids in dance class. Twenty years after we had played all the sports together with our moms and dads on the sidelines.

I generally have mixed feelings about living within twenty-five minutes of the very small town I grew up in. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it. That moment though. Was cool. I’m glad I could share my bewilderment at the how the hell did we get here with people who get it because not only did they experience it themselves, but we experienced it together.

The older I get the more I realize how precious it is to have people in my life who knew me before kids. Before mental health nursing, before nursing in general. People who knew my Dad. People who knew me as a kid. Not just because I was younger but because it’s a part of my narrative that is important. Now more than ever after the loss of my dad.

It’s important that I know people who know I have a wife. Who know my sister has a wife. Who’ve known my sister was gay since high school. Who don’t care. Who have still maintained relationships with my sister and I regardless of the gender of our spouses.

These people are important to me. So when I said good-bye and one of them said, “See you next week!” with a smile…I smiled back. It felt like huh oh yeah, I’ll see you every week now, just like before when we were on teams together. It felt normal. It felt like the last twenty years hadn’t even happened and we should bring a soccer ball and kick it around outside while the kids are in tumbling.

I might do that. Keep an eye out for that blog post. They would probably kick my ass.

Small town suburbia has pro’s and con’s. Pro: people know you. Con: people really know you. As I get older I appreciate the pro’s more than the con’s. I appreciate the connection with people. I appreciate that they knew my dad before dementia took him. I appreciate that they knew me before I became wife/Mama.

I appreciate that they don’t judge me because we all know all each other’s stuff from growing up together. We all just know.

 

 

 

**** The pic is the boys with one of our cats, Maddy. Maddy loves the boys. She is 17 and she lets them torture her daily while she purrs.