E-mail from alumni chair to Zeta Chi sorority alumni:

Dear Zeta Chi Alum,

Let me introduce myself – my name is ___________, I am a Junior and I joined Zeta Chi on Spring 2010. I am the new Alumni Chair and I am excited to work with former Zeta Chis this year. As part of my duties, I will be planning the Alumni Weekend in October and ZX’s 30th Anniversary!

E-mail from my college roommate/sorority sister to me:

Hi there — Can you believe this shit??? I emailed her and told her to get her facts straight. I said Honey, I was in the second pledge class, so I know there’s no way it can be a 30 year anniversary. More like 10 or 15. Tops.

You should tell her too. Somebody has to straigthen this out.

E-mail from me to my college roommate:

One of us is in denial. And it ain’t just a river in Egypt.

E-mail from my college roommate to me:

Bitch. Love ya.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post both wrote recently that women are becoming more and more unhappy the older they get. They site numerous studies all over the world. And it seems that over the past 40 years, women have become increasingly unhappy. We start out pretty upbeat as girls, then it all goes downhill. It seems as if we middle-aged broads are doomed to gloom.

Neither Maureen or Arianna offers a definitive explanation for why this occurs. It could have something to do with having kids — that old saying, “A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child” could have something to do with it. Or maybe it’s because we have more on our plates — trying to do all the stuff our mothers did, plus all the stuff our fathers did could be taking its toll.

Or it could be that women are becoming more and more likely to pause for a moment while taking a survey to ask themselves, “What is happiness, anyway?”

For me, it happens in unplanned moments, especially when I’m not pursuing it. In fact, maybe it’s the constant pursuit of happiness that is making us miserable.

Then: Orange VW convertible with pack of clove cigarettes hidden in the glove compartment
Now: Green family sedan with crushed goldfish crackers mixed with sand on the floorboards

Then: Hawaiian Tropic Suntan Oil, smells like coconuts
Now: Baby sunblock SPF 50, smells like ointment

Then: Red and white striped bikini
Now: Navy blue one-piece from JCPenny’s Frumpy Mama department

Then: Waiting in the sand for wayward boyfriend to get back from the liquor store
Now: Waiting in the sand for dependable husband to carry everything from the car, pack-mule style

Then: Laying out for hours hoping to be watched
Now: Standing at water’s edge with hands on hips for hours, watching

When I was in fourth grade, our Catholic school hired a down-on-her luck ballet teacher to instill in us girls some semblance of gracefulness. I say down-on-her-luck because this teacher was clearly an unhappy person, less cheerful than most of the nuns. She was young and strikingly beautiful with a ramrod back and tight-bunned hair. I wonder now if she were a fallen prima ballerina, sidelined from her dreams by an injury or some other tragedy.

She was strict and unsmiling with us. Our butt-out plies seemed to disgust her. One day she had each of us come to the front of the class to do some sort of interpretive dance. I found out later she was using this test to assess whether any of us should be invited to join her private dance studio. She stared at me as I awkwardly, self-consciously stretched and bent. I saw her mark something on a clipboard. Probably a big red X.

I did NOT want to be a sissified ballerina. I wanted to be a baseball player. Ballet was for girly girls and I was a card-carrying tomboy.

But now I think, what a gift I threw away. I watch my nieces dance on stage and they are so graceful, so joyful. What must it feel like to move like that? And I look at the little one curled in my lap, watching the show. Should I enroll her? Is she ready? Does she want to?

Dancing is a big business in Fort Bend County. Many of Girl’s friends take dance lessons once a week, and the recitals are massive affairs. But when I think about taking her to the lessons, I think of waiting for her in the car for an hour in the evenings, after I get home for work. It’s hard to want to sign the enrollment forms.

But today I was thinking, what if they offered mother/daughter dance lessons? No, I don’t want to dance with Girl, but with other moms who never danced when they were little. Or with moms who used to dance and now never get the chance.

We wouldn’t have to perform. Believe me, no one wants to see my fat butt in tights. But just to move to music, to learn something new, to laugh and have fun like our daughters do. That would be magic.