Older is Not Necessarily Less Fun

A few nights ago I went with some friends to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games. We left once our children were in bed, and after one of our husbands returned from a meeting. We arrived at the theater to find lots and lots of teenage girls. And we felt a little old, because we were older than the vast majority of the vastly female audience filling most of the theater. Still, we enjoyed our girls' night out probably as much as any of them. And we weren't so different.

We did not braid our hair, make t-shirts, pick teams according to the male character we hoped the female lead would eventually choose (seems kind of pointless since the entire series is out), or paint our skin and hair. We did, however, play games, take pictures of ourselves, drink caffeine, and generally fill in the member of our group who hasn't read any of the books but came along for the fun. And, inspired by the row of girls playing the "I Never..." game behind us, we discussed some of the craziest things we've done. Our stories were much better than theirs; we've been to college.

Then, when the movie was over, we spent the ride home discussing the cinematography, the effects of violence in our culture, the quality of writing in the books and the modern day location of the various districts of Panem. And, in all my 2:30 a.m. haze, I was grateful to be at a place in life where I have friends who want to be a little crazy and go to movies in the middle of the night, spend the ride home discussing the cultural and political messages of the story and the editorial choices in adapting the books to film, and would drowsily commiserate with me when we all took our daughters to Kindermusik at 9:15 the next morning.

The only thing missing was Sheena, the friend who got us all reading The Hunger Games in the first place.