Babysitter's Club

Tonight I went out to dinner with my girlfriends Kacey, Liza and Laura (Sue had to work late, otherwise she would have been there).  Almost always we go to the same restaurant, Penelope, and we always order the same exact thing: The veggie burger with brie and side salad instead of fries.  We've been doing it for several years now.

It's very Connecticut. 

We are all from West Hartford, and have been friends since elementary and middle school.  In high school we used to play this game that we created and called "Older".  We would sit around Laura's kitchen table, eat Entemann's coffee cake or sandwiches stacked with Boar’s Head turkey and cheese talk about what our life would be like when we were older (25-35 years old).   We chatted about whom we would marry and where we would live and what we would do for work, if we decided to work at all.  We joked about who would drive the minivan and who would marry the loser (never me, of course).

So now, we're older and living our game. Sometimes I think so much has changed since we were 15 years old and then other times, as we sit around a table, eat, gossip and make fun of one another, I think we haven't changed one bit.   We were cliquey then and we are cliquey now.  We’re all about 30 years old, and yet if someone tries to order anything other than the veggie burger, they get scoffed at, and talked about when we go to use the restroom (together, obviously).

Some “Older” predictions were spot on and others we never saw coming.

We never talked about raising families in New York City, or even living in the city for that matter.  Both Kacey and Liza are pregnant and have quickly approaching due dates (March 10^th and March 25^th respectively).   We don’t have those minivans we envisioned, but matching strollers, instead. 

Some of us are married with a baby or baby on the way, some of us are just on the verge of marriage, and others are rockin’  the single life.  Yeah, we’re older, but still playing the game. Now, we talk about where we will live in five years and what it might be like to have yard.