There is a little secret that many moms like me are hiding. It seems a little precarious to divulge this certain secret to just anyone. What would our new mom friends think? We keep it to ourselves as we responsibly sip two glasses of wine during dinner and cap off our girls’ night with a big glass of water. We turn up our nose at the group of 21-year-old girls doing shot after shot at the bar on our way out the door at 11:00 PM.

Mom friend: “I meannn…Could you imagine acting like that? That many shots?”

Me: “…….”

Luckily, others jump in with the usual goodbye banter.

“What a late night! (Yawn) So tired!”

“See you next week at preschool registration!”

“Remember to text me that recipe!”

Then we say our goodbyes as we hop into our economical and family friendly vehicles full of empty car seats and cracker crumbs. We drive home and hurry to bed. Why the hurry? Because those kids will be up by 7:00 AM, whether we had a late dinner or not!

I really do feel tired as I walk to my own Ford Edge (Go ahead and laugh! At least it’s not a minivan!) and unlock it. Heck – If I am being honest – I didn’t even want to get dressed, do my hair, put on makeup and go out in the first place. I look at the clock on the dash as I start the engine. (If I can make it home in a half hour and go right to bed, I can still get seven hours of sleep in! Pedal to the medal!)  I drive home and chuckle to myself about this little secret that I keep, because just a few short years ago things at 11:00 PM looked much different for me.

Ready to hear this little secret?

Here goes…..

I was once a Party Girl.

In fact, I was the epitome of Party Girl.

I went out all the time. Every. Single. Night. I knew every bar and every club. I knew the promoters and the owners. I never paid for drinks. I never waited in line. I left my apartment to START the night at 11:00 PM, not to resurface for real life until the sun was coming up. Quite frankly, I can’t tell you how I lived through this madness to see today.

It’s a true miracle that I stand before you!

I have to admit, I looked great during those days. (Which is completely inexplicable considering I had no sleep and no proper nutrition while ingesting immeasurable amounts of alcohol and the *occasional* illegal substance. Chalk it up to youth, I guess!) If you ever were a true Party Girl, you could probably check all of these boxes too:

• My skin was a uniform shade of tan. (ALL party girls went tanning in the cancer box commonly called a tanning bed. Yep. ALL of them.)
• My nails freshly manicured and toes freshly pedicured. (This was very important. It is stressful maintaining the Party Girl lifestyle while holding down a job and school. I needed that mani & pedi to unwind, damn it!)
• My hair always cut in the latest trend with fresh platinum blonde highlights. (I don’t know how I was able to afford this.)
• My closet was bursting with party dresses, clutch purses, and amazing pairs of high heels. (Again, how did I afford this? Eh, who cares – I looked good right?!)

I also had immeasurable amounts of time to spend on my appearance. I would spend an hour each night just doing my make up. My smokey eye was blended to perfection and cheekbones perfectly contoured. Another hour was spent trying on outfits. Nothing to wear? No problem! Just call a friend over and spend yet another hour trying on her outfits, and she could try on mine! Bonus: Now that we were together, we could start to pre-drink! Oh, and turn that new Britney album on! And turn it waaaay the hell up!

I would always finish off the “getting ready ritual” by selecting a pair of my killer high-heeled shoes. Flats? BLAH! Moms wear flats!

We would finally head out, and I thrived. My witchy little self loved the feeling of walking past the people waiting in line (Sucks for them!) and straight in the door. We danced and did shots. (If I remember correctly, it was infinity amounts of shots. So yes, my mom friend from earlier, I can imagine doing that many shots.) We would eventually be asked to join gentlemen in V.I.P. for champagne. We would accept, then promptly assess the other girls in V.I.P. – who clearly weren’t as “hot” as us. (Chances are we all looked exactly the same….Just tan, blonde bodies filling up the space and giving each other dirty looks so that random guys who could afford to waste money on bottle service felt good about themselves.) Once the night of partying was all said and done, I would make my way home. I would lovingly wipe my shoes with a damp cloth, thank them for making my calves look fabulous, and tuck them back into their spot amongst their siblings on the rack in my closet. Another epic night over.

Ahhhh….The Party Girl life!

If I met my Party Girl self and told her she would be a stay-at-home mom who pops out 2 kids in 3 years, she would probably laugh in disbelief while she trotted off to her next social event. Who would be dumb enough to ruin their life and body having kids?!

Chances are I would also probably punch her. Yep. Right in the stupid, tan face. Good thing my current schedule of awake during the day and asleep at night makes the chances of a nocturnal Party Girl sighting pretty slim.

As time passed, that chapter of my life ended. I assimilated into society as a functioning human being. Over the years of pregnancy and new motherhood, I have given away most of my party clothes without batting an eye. Even now that I have lost the baby weight, those dresses just wouldn’t have looked the same on me. It’s like they belonged to a different girl. I couldn’t part with the shoes though. They were just such great shoes. I kept them all.

11:00 at night is now my bed time. I need my beauty sleep. (Especially now that the births of two children have robbed me of some of the beauty I once beheld.) I hide from the sun like it is a demon dragging me to Hell. SPF 90? Get me some of that! UV rays are the fast track to wrinkles and death! (Which are interchangeable in my mind.) To say I have gone “low maintenance” with my appearance would be an understatement. My current daily beauty regimen takes 5 minutes, and is as follows:

• Put on leggings and long T-shirt.
• Put hair in ponytail.
• Brush teeth.
• Apply tinted moisturizer, mascara and lip balm.
• Go about day without giving a second thought to appearance.

Now….A girls’ night out means I might actually spend a half hour getting ready. I will wash and blow dry my hair. I will add some eyeshadow and lip gloss to the above beauty regimen. I will also put on real clothes (Time to bust out the designer skinny jeans!) and perhaps…A pair of my amazing old high heels??? After all – it seems only fair to take them for a spin once in a while. It probably gets pretty boring in the dark closet they currently reside 99.9% of the time.

One of my new mom friends will notice them at dinner and say, “Oh my gosh! I love those heels! Where did you get them?!”

I can just smile with my little Party Girl secret as I answer, “Oh these? They are just an old pair.”

I might even get crazy and order a third glass of wine that night…Because…Well…If the shoe fits….