Will we really run around naked?

That's the question that I pondered as I drove home last night.......

College planning. That's how it all happened. My running naked thinking.

On Monday, Toni and I met with her guidance counselor to plot out her senior year and the whole college application process. My youngest child....my wonderful, perfect shopping partner and all around sweet, dear friend....my beautiful, shoe-loving daughter---will be graduating from high school next year. That in itself is a tough one to comprehend. When did that precious little baby with the never ending supply of smiles and hair bows leave my arms and start walking on her own? Somewhere in between all of my diets, I suppose.

Last night, after work, I picked up my wonderfully magical, funny, quirky, entirely too intense son, Vince. We had one of our long discussions about where he will go to get his PhD. He has to make his final decision by April 15 . So, time is closing in on him. Remember....I said he was intense. Let that describe our conversation. After I dropped him off.....I had to take a very deep breath and take a few drags on a contraband cigarette in order to make the rest of my drive home. Then, as I veered my way up towards the bridge--- it all hit me. In a little less than 18 months, both of my children will be off on campuses many miles away. Not one of them. Both of them. Another contraband cigarette.

All these years of dropping kids off at day care and school and racing home to pick them up, getting them to where they need to be, going to baseball games and school art shows and cheerleading competitions and finding babysitters and rooting them on at soccer tournaments and dance recitals and attending open houses and making lunches and dinners and doing homework and scheduling parent-teacher meetings and......all of those years of being me---Judi the mom. Being us---Carmen and Judi---the parents. Baptisms and First Holy Communions and Confirmations and big, big moments. Finding the perfect outfit....one that fits. Meeting the perfect friends.....the supportive mom who wore curlers in her hair to day care...and her sexy, fun sister-in-law, the boisterous perfectly dressed wild mom at the dance studio. Forever friends. Everything else....gone. Over. Never again. Now what?

That's what got me to think about running around naked. Because that's what we could do. That thought didn't feel quite as daunting as the empty nest thoughts I was having moments before. So, I stayed with it. We could run around naked. All over the house. Up the steps. Down the steps. I could do laundry naked. Cook naked. Heck, I could eat naked. I couldn't garden naked. But, I could watch TV naked. Talk on the phone naked. "Hello, I'm naked....". We'd have to stop our naked running around during holiday breaks and Spring breaks. But, after that.....naked, naked, naked. Hey, I could blog naked. But, no Christmas morning naked fests.

Funny thing.....if I would have realized that I could do all this naked living a year ago.....I would have probably preferred to think about my empty nest problem. Why? Well, because I was 60+ lbs heavier with no hope of ever finding the right diet. But, thinking about it now---well, I've lost 60+ lbs and I have hope of loosing about 40 more. Although I'm sane and realistic enough to know that I won't be Playboy bunny material naked.....I'm not quite as horrified by the thought.....of being naked. Infact, I'm kind of curious what I'll look like.....40 or so pounds from now.....as I do all my naked stuff. Trust me, I have no grand illusions about what I'll really look like. I'll be 50 years old and lots of my body will be going south. I'll have sagging skin....I'm sure. And, things won't be quite as perky as they once were. But, I'm guessing I'll be normal looking for a 50 year old broad. Naked but normal. Natural too. Except of course for my feet. I can't run around naked without shoes. And they will have to be great shoes. Amazing shoes. To-die-for, over-the-top, spectacular shoes. Academy award winner shoes. And, lots of them. Lots and lots of goddessy, queen-worthy shoes. Pile and piles of diva, decadent and damn adorable shoes. Fu-fu shoes. Sexy shoes. Girly shoes. Sassy shoes. Wild shoes. Shiney shoes. Swanky shoes. Killer shoes. Shoes. Shoes. And more shoes.

.................But, who will I shop for my naked running shoes with? Time for another contraband cigarette.