The Reverse Murtaugh

I was talking the other day to a friend who will turn 26 in a few months time. She is terrified that she'll reach 30 without a wedding ring or a toddler (preferably in that order.) She doesn't want to be 40 before she has a kid. I tried to tell her that that is exactly how old my mother was when she had me and I don't recall her ever being to tired to keep up with me. Actually, the night Michael Jackson died we danced around the kitchen to the stream of Jackson 5 videos playing on every channel.

She dances better than most of my friends and she's 65. She can still twist. She can still jerk. I'm pretty sure she could pull off a mean watusi with minimal provocation. She shovels the snow and never asks anyone to open a jar for her. The only suit she owns is a perfectly impractical shade of red. She once drove her car on the sidewalk surrounding the Washington monument because she wanted to see if it was wide enough for a VW Bug. The night she totaled her car and had to be taken to the hospital, she smiled because her panties matched her bra. They were both plaid. The other night, she casually dropped into conversation the nude pictures of herself she used to have hanging in her apartment. She did all this before she had kids. She lived a whole life before she met my father, settled down, and had kids.

Even still, there are things she never did and I know she wants better for me. She never really traveled. She pretty much always had to work. My friend might owe her mother grandbabies, I owe mine pictures of me on top of Irish cliffs and in front of Parisian cafes with dark Italian men who call me "Bella" because "Meredith" is too hard for their languid tongues. I might keep the languid tongues to myself though. I owe her poems and journals and postcards. I owe her roadtrips and staying out too late to catch the Metro home because I didn't want to leave before the next song. I owe her cup after cup of coffee and the occasional cigarette even though we know much better. I owe her scotch and just a splash of water.

So that's where my list comes in. I don't know if I'll ever get married or have kids. I do know there there are a few things I need to do before I turn 30. Before I get too old for this shit. I'm not going to compile the list here. It's a work in progress. But one of the things on the list is (and has been for a while now) go to a music festival that lasts more than one day. Today, I bought my ticket for Bonnaroo. I'm going to get dirty. I might even get crusty. I'll sleep in a van and "shower" with a giant bottle of water and some baby wipes. I'll wear my hair in braids and pretend that my striped bikini is a perfectly acceptable bra/shirt. I'm going to do this for four days and it's going to be magical because these guys will be there (and so will thousands of my new best friends):