I had quite the social life in high school; Friday nights were for ball games, sometimes with a date, but more often with a group. Saturday nights were youth group activities, or games of Pit or Spoons and Toll House Cookies at the Murphy's. There was prom and Sadie Hawkins Dances, and Homecoming and the Lionettes Christmas Dance. I loved it all.
Later in college, much to my mother's dismay, oftentimes my social life consisted of watching Hawaii Five-0 with my dad. College dating consisted of 2 or 3 dates with whatever guy was looking for a wife and figured I might do. Usually it only took 2 or 3 dates for him to figure out that, perhaps, I wouldn't do. There was the time that I dated a guy known at my house as "Harry the Bastard," but really he was a pretty nice guy, just not terribly interested in me. Then along came Mr. Lincoln who offered to take me dancing, oh, wait, "you have a cast from your thigh to your ankle, maybe dancing isn't such a great idea." Well, duh. But movies, and dinners and dates to church turned, more rapidly than might be advisable, into conversations of marriage and forever.
Early in our marriage, we had a social life. Dinner out with friends, church, movies, the horse races, UK football and basketball games, all manner of wonderful, exciting social activities. As our family grew, so did our social life. We had friends who were the parents of our children's friends, football games, dinners in our homes, trips to Lexington, Gatlinburg and Captiva, evenings spent with dinner out and dancing, concerts, tacky parties, and 30 Something events, Halloween Masquerade parties, Christmas at Belle Meade Mansion. It was all fun stuff.
Last night as I sat on my sofa with a freshly bathed Simeon in my lap giggling and giggling as he zipped and unzipped a compartment on my purse, the thought occurred to me, "now this is a social life I can really enjoy!" There is no movie more entertaining than the live action that we enjoyed yesterday of Max walking around on his knees jabbering in his little boy language. There is nothing that even remotely compares to the big grins those boys toss our way...Simeon's with his large "Chiclet" teeth, and Max with that most familiar genetic space between his two front teeth. There is no movie, no dinner, no dancing, no ball game, no party, no anything that compares to the contentment and joy of a Saturday afternoon and evening spent watching Mr. Lincoln and Max touch fingertips in the vein of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, or to look out the living room window and see Simeon walking up the driveway with one hand in Fizzie's and the other holding a "big stick." "You want me to read the Gingerbread Man again...okay, how ever many times you want."
So, I embrace this new social order, if you will. It is the best, and whenever I feel like the world is passing me by and I'm missing all the great movies and I haven't danced a step in quite some time and the leftover half of my lunch hamburger is what I have for dinner, I will be most grateful that most of my movies are happening live, and my dancing is now with a little guy in my arms as we move to the beat of "Five Little Monkeys," and my leftover hamburger is nectar from the gods because I am sharing it with Simeon or Max. Ah, I love this grandparent social life. It is the best. Robert Browning was on to something when he said, "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be..."
So for today, I wish you the social life for which you long, I wish you joy in the moment, and I wish you,
blessings
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