I sat my son down to announce that I was leaving to go buy a trombone so that I could join a steel drum band. He pulled his gaming headset off and put his PS4 control down, and sighed. “Mom, why are doing this?”

Sometimes my son makes me feel like I am the 14 year old and he is the adult.

“What is wrong with my joining a steel drum band?” I said. “What do you want me to do, sit around here and watch Netflix?” “Yes,” he said while readjusting his gaming gear and turning his attention back to the screen.

I think sometimes he just likes me to be home… and it doesn’t matter if he is there or not. Once when he was staying at his dad’s, they stopped by unannounced to pick up a forgotten item. Surprise, surprise… I wasn’t there. When I got his, not his father’s, irate phone call, I said rather exasperatedly that I was not the fixed point in the Universe.

At least not anymore.

Understandably, for many years, I was. Cooking and baking and basically being at home looking after my family when I was not tripping on the corporate ladder. Who has time for outside interests when you are holding down a full time job and taking care of your family? (Well, French women in general, but that will be a blog post for another time.)

When the day came when I did find myself alone for the first time in years, I remembering sitting back on the couch trying to remember what “I” liked. Not the collective “we” but “I.” What books? Movies? And what did “I” like to do? Frightening how quickly one can forget.

To complicate matters, my language setting up to that point was in French. I watched French TV, listened to French radio, and I was working for one of the largest French companies where I worked mainly in, you guessed it, French. Looking back, I really only spoke English when conversing with my son.

Some time later I flew to London to stay with my host sister and I remembering the unbearable lightness of my situation. No diaper bag, toys, snacks…no one to take care of or look after except myself.

It was like I had stepped into a parallel universe, what my life would have been like if.

I remember taking a random double decker bus and rode it until it took my fancy to get off. I laid in the grass of Kensington Gardens just watching the clouds, and dreaming. I went to the theater, saw Shakespeare and Hair, and found myself in the end dancing on a West End stage, imploring until I was hoarse to let the light shine in.

And so my new life began. It is not the life I had asked for or even imagined but it’s the one I’ve got. Soccer coach, to surf lessons, to even playing trombone in a steel drum band.

So why am I doing all this?

Because why the hell not.

Before leaving the house, I sent a friend the address and phone number of my contact “just in case…”

“In case what,” she replied, “he would be the trombone murderer?”

That would be my demise. Lured to a house by an announce on “Le Bon Coin,” the French equivalent of Craigslist, and be killed by a guy who has a thing for girls with a firm embouchure. Maybe that would be my saving grace… sagging lips.

When I knocked on the door, a guy in his late 20’s opened it and he was surprised that I was alone. “That’s it,” I thought, “now he’s got me.” But it turns out he was expecting my son to there too. I figured that one out when I deftly put the horn together and put it on my shoulder to test the slide. “It’s for you?” He asked incredulously. Yes, yes. Me.

I handed it back to him so he could play a few notes. The sound was good… enough. It is a Stagg, more of a practice horn than anything else, but over the din of the banjo and steel drums, would anyone even notice?

That is when he asked if I wanted to give it a try. I guess my deft handling of the horn made him believe I could really play. Well, how hard can it be? It’s like riding a bicycle, right? After I played a few notes, he cleared his throat. “Ahm, so you are going to take a few lessons?” I didn’t even dare tell him that nah, I was good to go.

After negotiating the price, I picked up the horn case and walked back to my car. The weirdest thing was, it all felt so familiar: the weight of the horn, hitting the positions of the different notes on the slide, even carrying that damn case…it just felt right.