Margarita Magic

Yahoo! Another goal fulfilled! My Margarita Fiesta was quite the success. For many people this wouldn't be that big of a deal, but despite my desire to be more "laid back", I'm quite the opposite. I am what one might call "high strung". I tend to get extremely nervous about things like hostessing parties. I don't know why I feel so personally responsible for people having fun at a party I hostess...after all, it's really kinda out of my control. I worry about stupid things like how clean my house is or how old and tacky my furniture is, whether or not people will like the music or the food, whether the people will mix, whether they'll have places to sit, whether they'll find parking spots, and the list goes on and on.

When I went through the list of all my worries my mother assured me: "If they're your friends, they won't care about any of that stuff" and I ask: "But what if they're not my friends?" 'cause as it turns out, I didn't know about half the people at the party. I put out an open invitation to Parents Without Partners and many of the people that came to my party were new to the group and didn't even know me. This, of course, added to my unreasonable case of hostess jitters.

Then, of course, there was the "drunken" brawl worries. I'm all for that wonderful sense of euphoria one gets from alcohol, but a margarita party can quickly turn into a frat-boy Animal House party and I didn't feel at all prepared to handle that. I absolutely didn't want anyone to drink and drive, but I wasn't really too crazy about the potential of hosting a 50-person slumber party.

As it turns out, my friends (including those that I'd never met), made everything easy for me. They brought tons of food, made marvelous margaritas, told me I was a wonderful hostess, drank just enough to think the party was great fun, but not so much that they barfed all over my house (something I'm afraid that I was once guilty of) and if they DID have too much to drink they made sure they had a designated driver.

My Fisher Friends and my PWP friends and my friends that are neither Fisher or PWP all got along well and didn't even tease me at my insistence on name-tags and mingling with people they didn't know. So, once again, I stepped out of my comfort zone and found out that giving a big party was nothing to be scared of after all. It turned out to be great fun.

FB (that stands for Former Boyfriend) was there and he was my party hero. He's been a good friend lately. He's called me a lot since the New Year, including 4 times when I was running the marathon. Normally, he wouldn't even want to come to a party at all, let alone one that was filled with people that he didn't know. I invited him, but never expected him to come. But he came early with his blender and he was so sweet, staying quietly in the background, but seeking out and socializing with people that were by themselves. I asked him if he would stay until everyone else was gone and he agreed, albeit reluctantly, cleaning up and making sure I wasn't left alone with any "party strays". As independent as I try to be, I wanted him with me, and he didn't let me down. So between the margaritas and my gratefulness at his temporary-boyfriend-like-behavior I asked him to stay even later and be my FwB-Friend with Benefits.

Of course, I know this is not on the 90-day-plan to find Mr.Right. As much as I know that FB will be whatever acronym I want FB to stand for, he just can't be a regular BF (Boyfriend). When we were together he tried to be a good boyfriend and I think sometimes he really wants to try again, but it just isn't natural for him. I think he's just too scared of the commitment. At this point, maybe I am too. And in my quest to be more laid-back, for once maybe rather than worrying about it and overanalyzing it, I'll just enjoy the fact that I had a wonderful party and even better after party.