Many years ago now I was at a party with Some Other Parents and as the evening and wine progressed, one mother leaned in to me and nodded in the direction of the living room. There, a definitely attractive mum had decided to stand on a chair and dance in a manner usually associated with a pole. She was also singing in a Marilyn-infused whisper to whatever was playing at the time. (Alright, it was Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light, gack …) She was just on the cusp of that age where she could basically still get away with it, her body being firm, her hair artfully tousled and highlighted, full lips a shiny bubblegum pink.
But as the person next to me drily observed, “The guys are loving this – but if I stood on a chair? People would just laugh.”
And she was right.
The General and I were having our usual Sunday morning coffee discussion group today (only 2 people permitted, dressing gowns required) and listening to a superb documentary about “grey divorce” which caused us to sit exchanging (sometimes worried glances) as women discussed either having to leave their partners of many decades or being left themselves, each terrifying for different reasons. Of course, for the person who leaves, that ‘terror’ is often closer to excitement: the beginning of something new and a totally fresh start sponged clean of predictability, routine and the other assorted shackles of family life.