Sundays are for creeping. I flip through the perfectly candid photos my friends from high school post to their Facebook and Instagrams. They all look so beautiful with their pristinely contoured faces and matte lipstick laced smiles; Bud Lights and plastic cups in their manicured hands. As I scroll I imagine their weekends as if I was a part of them; the coordinated outfits and binge drinking. Since the birth of my son my weekend nights are usually spent workout shorts and various stained t shirts I’ve collected along my worldly travels. I don’t know how to contour and my hair is almost definitely placed in a crooked bun I probably spent more time on than it appears. The only thing coordinated about my ensemble is my tshirt/ nike short combo usually matches.
While my friends are out dancing their stressful weeks and responsibilities away at the bar with Mr. Right- Now, I’m home snuggling mine away. It wasn’t so long ago that I was with them; my hair curled and sprayed and my outfit carefully picked out for the maximum amount of cleavage. We’d go to the same houses week after week and play the same round of drinking games until we were too drunk to care about the rules. I’d stumble home in the wee hours of the morning with plenty of goofy pictures collected in my Snapchat story. I’d wake up Saturday afternoon ready for round two of the weekend. I literally never thought anything could be better than those nights that turned into hangover clad mornings; that nothing could compete with all of the teary, drunken, heart-to- hearts with the girls I’d spent most of my “adult” life with.When my best friend and I decided to be serious and get engaged I added him to the mix. I liked going out together and drinking with our friends. I loved that we could interact together and apart and we didn’t have to be on top of each other all the time, plus the people we were with were people we’d known forever. I loved waking up with both of us hungover, and ready and willing to do it all over again the next night. We took lots of Instagram worthy pictures and there was nothing better than knowing there was someone I loved willing to satisfy my drunk sex needs, instead of being alone. It feels like those days flew by. And all of the sudden I was pregnant. We tried to go out regularly during my pregnancy and socialize, but I couldn’t drink and I always felt out of place. We started staying in more on weekends and spending time with each other. Maybe we subconsciously thought we needed those last few months to spend as much time together as possible before it wasn’t just the two of us anymore. In reality I think we were just tired; growing a person is exhausting.
After Bain, going out lost a lot of its appeal. We were both so tired and every time we left I missed my newborn way more than I cared about shots. I suddenly realized I preferred being in pajamas without a bra and binge watching Netflix series to the weekends out spending money on booze I didn’t even like drinking anyway. Sure, I sometimes go stir crazy and Brad and I plan a weekend home without the baby so we can play a few rounds of beer pong and sleep till midday. I even miss getting use out of my “boobie” shirts that I spent countless amount of money collecting. But at the end of the day I love that Friday and Saturday nights are spent snuggling our baby and eating pizza while watching Pixar movies until we fall asleep around eleven. I get my cute candid photos at pumpkin patches and family dinners. And every Sunday I get a few minutes to reminisce about my going out days as I look at all my beautiful girl’s pictures of their weekends. I’m thankful I get to live vicariously through them and that when I come home for those prized, social, baby-free weekends, they welcome me with open arms and open bottles.
