old friends

kiddos (circa 1979)
Originally uploaded by atb20.

bro, showgirl, & moosk in the radioflyer.

yeah, those were simpler times. my biggest concern when i woke up in the morning was whether showgirl would be home when i ran over to her house at the crack of dawn -- this was always indicated by the garage door. open = home. closed = not home, sad moosk. (btw, it's really weird to refer to a three-year old as "showgirl." perhaps i should come up with a new moniker -- especially since it's been over a year since she's been in a vegas show. somehow "p.e. teacher" doesn't have the same ring, though.) over the years, showgirl and i have straddled ourselves on opposite sides of the country. she in vegas, me in new york. we've also followed quite different pathways: at 19, showgirl became pregnant with her older boyfriend's child. she left the comfort of her small texas college, driving distance from her parents and younger brother, to pursue love in las vegas. unfortunately, love didn't pursue her, and at 24, she was a divorced single mother with a smart, sassy, four-year old daughter. if you met her four years ago, you wouldn't know how she did it... she spent her nights doing acrobatics at a show on the strip, and during the day she worked furiously toward her BA in education, all the while caring ceaselessly for her young daughter. meanwhile in nyc, moosk was living the carefree life, working in theatre during the day, going out to drinks with friends in the evenings, and cozying up with mil in a parent-subsidized apartment in the west village (that i miss sooo much) on the weekends. now, once again, showgirl and i find ourselves in similar points in our lives. she was remarried this spring, and mil and i married the summer before. she is now gestating baby #2, as mil and i try to figure out when baby #1 will come into the picture. though still thousands of miles apart, it is interesting how our lives have come back together.