One of the things I love about being an adult is that I’ve become friends with… my mom. She and I have a habit. We go to the Circle K every day and get sodas. She gets a Dr. Pepper, I get a Diet Coke. Sometimes, if one of us is out and the other one is home, we’ll call each other and ask… “Do you have need?” The answer is usually yes. We don’t always go together (since we have different schedules), but on Saturdays, or if we happen to be out somewhere together, we will. And that’s fun. On Mondays, sometimes she calls me at work and sings the “Dancing with the Stars” themesong into my voicemail, which always makes me smile.

A story.

So this one time, there was this guy who asked if I wanted to go to a concert. “Sure,” I said. Well, it ended up that we didn’t go together. (That’s another story.) But he sent me the tickets, and I took my mom. We got there a little early, and we were sitting in the parking lot of Arco Arena (drinking our sodas), watching the people go by. It wasn’t long before we realized that we were the youngest people there. I mean, these were people using walkers, and dressed in pale blue polyester pants. It was that sort of crowd. We got into the concert, and it was crazy, because I had never heard of the performer before, but he has this incredibly loyal fan base of, like, eighty-year-olds. And during intermission, because it was at Arco Arena, all these incredibly loyal eighty-year-olds went out to the hallways and got their neon-orange nacho cheese from the food vendors… I don’t even want to talk about the line to the bathroom.

And we were sitting next to this couple. They looked like they were on a date, but the man was WAY older than the woman. The woman was wearing lots of jewelry and laughing too loud at things that only old men should laugh at. We wondered if she was a genuine, bona fide gold digger. At the end of the show, my mom and I walked out of the theater (considerably faster than most of the other patrons), and we went home. And I realized, at this concert, watching the other people, and talking, and laughing, that my mom and I were peers. Don’t get me wrong. She’s still my mom. But now, she’s my friend too.

2 Responses to “Friends.”

1. Judy says:

   November 10, 2009 at 7:20 am

   Now that you’re learning photo shop, could you please make me less scary looking? That was a super fun evening!
2. Emily C says:

   November 11, 2009 at 12:16 pm

   Mom totally rocks it. And so do you, sis.