Sunset 67…or FOMO

I just put Callie in the car to go to school. With my husband out of town, it always works to my advantage to have a teacher spend the night because of the time difference in drop offs. It also helps she is one of my best friends. Catie is sick with a virus and in that moment, I started thinking about middle school. She got this virus and it hit hard. She’s not a complainer. In fact she worries more about letting people down than herself being sick. (Or FOMO…fear of missing out) She has a tennis match today. Last night after she had not made a sound she decided she needed to go to school today so she could play tennis. Mind you, she has ate nothing and barely moved just a few times. She just didn’t want to let the team down. I also think she wants to not miss out. That would be more me.

In middle school I had a friend named Dede. Our moms, I believed conspired on every plan we had, to ensure we would stay out of harms way. If you knew us, then you knew we could get around most obstacles. There was a new teen club called “Sunset 67”. It was a club for 13-18 year old teens. All of our friends got to go. I mean Main Street was hopping. I believe it was open every Friday and Saturday but you never saw our sad faces there. We were probably getting our lady we babysat for to drive us by so we could just covet their fun from the music bellowing into the streets. We would hear the stories of the teens they met from around the town and how much fun it was. I can assure you if “FOMO” would have been a word back then then we would have had a shirt made with it written on it. One day after this place had been on the scene on what seems like forever, our parents told us we could go. It’s like heaven opened up the gates and we had arrived. We planned our outfits to the tee. Aqua-net was waiting on ready and we were going to turn this place out.. that statement alone makes me laugh. We had no clue our sneaky parents had found out this was the last night Sunset would be open. We strutted in like we were all kinds of glamorous to be greeted by maybe a total of 20 people. I mean not good ones. Dance floor empty, music was lame and you guessed it.. the hype was bigger then the real event. Perhaps this was supposed to be some learning moment but instead I think I developed some weird disorder to where I believed it was never gonna be as good as you imagined.

As I got older, I have disproven this theory many times over. Having my first kiss was not one of them but the 2nd was. Getting my first job, my first real boyfriend, my wedding, my babies. All things you dream up in your head for them to far surpass your expectations. Now also this has also been a curse. I’m the best to play out scenarios before events happen. All my friends have heard me say “What if we go in the store and we run into “blah blah” and they say this and so on… then nothing happens. My pastor would say that I have a dreamer personality. I dream about it ,think about it , play it out long before it happens. If it ever goes just somewhat right then I’m beside myself. If it exceeds my expectations then you need to back up because the happy dance is on tap….

So here’s the problem. Life rarely plays out like the last example. In fact it’s usually just what you knew it was gonna be. Sometimes like when I was younger the club will be closed. Maybe it had been a place where Dede and I would have met some shady kids or got in trouble. Maybe God kept us out to protect us.

As adults we don’t have parents to say that may not be the best purchase or choice. I still will plan a dinner, girls night, trip out of town and I truly had played every scenario before it’s ever happened. This is such a bad flaw. One I’m working on. We went to concert one year and had the worst seats. So my cousin and I decided to sneak to the front empty seats as it started. We just kept edging up. Finally a man on staff asked us if we wanted to meet “Boys to Men”…. I had not expected this. This was a game changer for me. I had not ran this through my mind and it was going to fast. Before you knew it we were backstage meeting our High school idols. Side note: this surpassed any desire to go to Sunset 67 right then. Lol. That’s the whole thing. Sometimes in life your gonna plan, desire , dream to go to somewhere or do something and it will be a total letdown. It could also be for the better. Then you could be living in the moment, with no expectations and meet your total high school soundtrack in one night. Those are both the moments that shape us.

I don’t want Catie to worry about what she’ll miss because chances are the moments that just play out are far greater. I live my life a lot by “It is what it is…”. Can’t control what happens but how we respond. Even at 45, I need to work on that part of me. When you realized not everyone is wired like you then you see that perhaps it’s better to have expectations but not ridiculous ones. That way if the big ones happen then you can be over the top and enjoy the moment as you should. So Sunset 67 I’m sure we would have gotten in trouble. Today Catie would have lost her match and ran herself down more then needed. Two examples. As for me I’m gonna work on still being a dreamer just so much not as expecting things to play out my ways. Enjoy the moments as they come..maybe someone should remind me of this when I’m not adhering to this wisdom. 🙄 Just trust the process. Have fun, enjoy the moments that happen and don’t be sad about the games you missed. There’s always another tennis match, teen club, dinner, concert. And maybe just maybe it will play out better then you imagined. Trust me Ive Witnessed it on a few occasions. Be blessed, be you, love yourself… all of you faults and all. If anything you’ll have a good story to tell one day. 😇