Last night was date night, and it brought back memories of a younger and more vibrant time that it feels we are on the cusp of returning to.
On a friend's recommendation, we attended a live show of Mortified, a national phenomenon (with an eponymous podcast) where writers and artists "share the shame" of reading their actual high school diaries aloud to an empathetic audience.
The vulnerability, absurd romantic fantasies, and cringe-inducing exchanges (ex: Susie told me I was stuck up and a slut, and that I would never sing as good as Madonna!) were so delicious that my wife and I were bent over with laughter.
Complementing the storytellers was a three-member improvisational band, the D Minus Kids, who heard each narrative for the first time that evening and wove it into an original twisted tribute song between acts.
There were two take home messages from this experience. The first is the reminder that attending live events (whether spoken word, music or theater) is something I once valued highly and didn't realize I'd missed until I returned.
My wife and I met and married late in life; our daughter was born a year and a month after our wedding. While we traveled together, as two full-time ER docs, that year before parenthood did not leave a lot of time for cultural exploration together. The joy we both derived from this evening on the town leaves open the possibility of future evenings on the town in search of cultural events. LA is a wonderful patchwork of different neighborhoods and artistic communities, and I look forward to exploring them with her.
The second take home message is that being able to explore new adventures in art and live performance makes the upcoming empty nest stage of life seem pregnant with opportunity, discovery and appreciation.
Reframing the future without our kids as a chance to see more and learn more with fewer constraints seemed a reach before last night; now I feel almost giddy with the idea of what it might become.
Far from a withering, the next epoch could offer accelerated growth.