When I answer her question she physically recoils. "34? Are you SERIOUS? God."

She pauses.

"I'm an esthetician. You don't look 34. Have you had any kids?"

"Yeah, two!" yells Justin over the band as I shout "Three!"

"Hey, Steve! Check it out! He said two, and she said three!"

She giggles. Justin and I look at each other and smile, and look at her, and smile. We all stare at each other curiously and thanks be to beer, she shrugs and joggles away through the crowd, called away by Tommy Tutone.

She is 24. She had asked me where I live and I said here and she said Oh! Well then you'd know Monique DeYoung and that's when I smiled and said No, I doubt it. How old are you?

"I think we're finally getting kinda old for this," Justin had said as we limped like a couple of suffocating fish on the dance floor.

"No," I insisted. "It's not us. It's the music."

The DJ, thinking himself ironically hip, selects Toto's Africa with his tongue-in-cheek when he could have chosen this. Or this. Or this. But as it happens, the guy with the mike is among those who think We Built This City is 80s dancefloor gold.

(Whenever we go to a movie it has to be nothing short of epic awesomeness to make the baby-leaving worthwhile. Same with Justin & Kate's Annual Pump 'N Dump Extravaganza. By the time we're lathered up enough to kick it it's 10:30 and almost time to pass out and we're thinking "Dammit, we could DJ better than this with our ears stapled to the floor!" And well, we want to SUE SOMEBODY.)

Then it's Mony Mony and scores of naughty nurses and giant jellyfish and endless drunken pirates squeal in unison HEY MOTHERF*CKERS GET LAID GET F*CKED! as if they're the first 24-year-olds to do so, ironic tongue-in-cheek, fifteen years after it was cool to be ironic and tongue-in-cheek in response to that particular song.

Justin uses one finger to push his glasses up the sweaty bridge of his nose and sighs, "We were doing that in GRADE SEVEN."

God, I love Halloween. Even when over-aged and underwhelmed.

It was the same field of glaciers we’d always hike up to, our packs stuffed with familiar necessities: beer, bacon, steaks, more beer, mild hallucinogens (that was only once, stewed into hamburger helper, and it would have been rude to say no and after all, it smelled delicious, and that was the night I spotted a passing fleet of UFOs).

All things sure to attract good times and ravenous, post-hibernatory black bears alike (rocket scientists, the lot of us).

We’d hike to the top of the mountain in the heat of summer, set up camp at the base of the glacier and watch as building-sized chunks of ice would crack free of the mother like the blow from a cannon and tumble down the snowfield, ass over teakettle, to rest at the top of where the rock began.

We’d stomp up higher through knee-deep snow to where we could crawl under the lip of the ice and feel its ancient drips on our backs. Then in the midday sun we’d sometimes strip down, sometimes not, and boot-glissade down the steep, smooth snow, soak hot, stifled feet in rushing creeks, scramble atop giant boulders to take in the view of a trio of brilliantly clear emerald lakes.

We’d curl up, backs against trunks and down sleeping bags cinched up around our noses in front of a fire, experience-drunk and giggling, convinced that everything we ate — crackers with peanut butter, instant oatmeal, tuna from the can, mr. noodle — was surely the finest fare in the whole province that night.

On one trip the film advancer of my point-and-shoot broke. Unknowing, I kept snapping. When the pictures came back there was accidental art: five exposures on one frame, the print just rediscovered.

1. Left of centre there’s a back view of me, hair freshly cropped to the skull for the first and last time, peeling off sweaty clothes at the lakeshore;
2. At the centre is me moments later, crouched at the water's edge and about to jump in (followed by screaming, and flailing, and chattering back to shore);
3. To the right edge are friends Matt and Daphne, resting halfway up the trail;
4. Just to the left of Daphne’s head, faintly, is Justin glissading down the snowfield; and
5. To the far left is all four of us standing in front of the glacier cliff, which runs the breadth of the shot.

We didn’t have much money, and we lived in musty basement apartments. We were living though, living so vividly and so freely that I can’t help but smile to remember it.

Now, we’re all parents. Daphne and Matt are visiting from Vancouver and they stayed here for a couple of days, gave us (particularly Evan) ample opportunity to fall head-over-heels in love with their girl Sadie.

There’s an immense, chewy satisfaction about making this transformation alongside dear friends who were there when we were all just us. We watch each other as mothers and fathers, grinning widely, content to let our kids be cooler than us, tipsy in the thick of toddler adoration.

Indescribably happy times ten years ago, and indescribably happy times two days ago. Life explosions and upheaval and flotsam resettling in between the two, changing everything, but no one minding a bit that a cheerio-littered floor lies at our feet rather than emerald water that sparkles with glass-like brilliance.

It makes me old to say it, he said. But look at us. We were so young. We weren’t who we’d be yet.

And in the snotty, brillo-pad-swallowing fog, it made perfect sense. Justin and I had retreated to bed early, both crippled with playschool-variety colds and sore throats, and sat with a picture found in Shediac of us, twelve years ago.

In it, we are less than a day’s drive out of Halifax, off to find our fortunes after meeting a year before and graduating university. We bought our first car and packed it full, driving west because we’d never gone in that direction before. Wearing matching Bouctouche dinner jackets, thinking we were tongue-in-cheek but really just being gaggingly cute, the two of us.

My resume may as well have been the following, in the middle of a blank piece of paper — Kate ‘God’s Gift’ Robson, B.P.R.

100% vaccuous, but brimming with an institutionally-bred sense of entitlement. It’s the only public relations degree in the country! And it’s mine. Convinced that charm, arrogance and three letters made up for lack of experience. About to be unceremoniously dropped into the software industry blender and then pulverized into a pulpy, quivering mass.

Justin was competent, ready, perfectly suited. But for what? Details, details. Somehow I always knew something waited for him — and it did. On his second day as a ski patroller, a thirteen-year-old boy died in his arms. He came home affected but calm, and that was the beginning of him.

Remember that one-room apartment in Whitehorse? The fridge used to keep us awake.

It was late October in the Yukon, four feet of snow on the ground, and everything fell through. We went to the library, chose the fattest newspaper off the shelf and decided to cut our losses in favour of that city: Vancouver. The following decade was a blur of growth disguised as both turmoil and fun… skiing and mountains and mentors and kayaks and currents and an impossible learning curve and that feeling of satisfaction that settles over you when you’ve made a place Yours.

Are we boring? he whispers in the darkness. I thought he'd been asleep. The occupants of my belly tossed and turned, and I was wrapped up in the fruitless pursuit of a comfortable position.

We’re just busy, I reply, after a long think.

I’d hug you, but then I’d get all hot, he says.

Uh-huh, I smile though he can’t see, full of affection and agreement. And then we sleep.

Are you boring, compared to the giggling, self-timer-picture-taking, freedom-filled days of your past? Does knowing it haunt you? Or are you content to coast on the fumes of your hipness?

Before long you’ll squidge a booger from your child’s nose in a public place and wipe it on your pantleg, as fellow diners or shoppers cast disgusted glances your way. That’s when you’ll realize that you’re doomed to never again be hip.

That’s why we love the company of like-minded souls: others who know from experience that a shirt with one cashew-butter smear is easily two barfs away from being truly dirty, and totally wearable by either mother or father.

Comrades are nonplussed, unbewilderable. They get us, and we get them. To each other, we’re all still cool. A fine consolation, even if the rest of the world is not in agreement.

Yes, we sniff our kids’ rear-ends in restaurants.

And yes, sometimes we follow that with a loud, proud “Phhhheeeewwwww!”, accompanied with comic eye-rolling and mock swooning.

But, we tell ourselves, we have a lot of wooden toys or we don’t watch the Backyardigans or we don’t shop at Wal-Mart or Evan likes Gorillaz in the car. So there.

Everyone has their own principles, from secondhand kids’ clothing to veggie hot dogs. Distinctions and subtleties that bolster us against the wave of ordinary, predictable, porridge-coloured, 50/50 cotton-polyester parenthood.

For us it’s been music, which rings through the house almost nonstop. We’ve wandered the hallowed halls of iTunes in search of anything Disney and dinosaur-free. We discovered our beloved Pete Seeger and the loony-British-granny feeling of The Gruffalo, but right now, impossibly funky, acoustic Dan Zanes (and his friends) provide the soundtrack of our revolution. I simply have to pass it on, fist in the air, to all my fellow anarchists. Shout out.

For the first time, Justin and I are a bit sick of each other.

We’re companionable enough, but he nags me to use fewer pots while cooking. I snap at him for getting mad about the dirty dishes, and whine about being a full-time laundress. He stresses about our grocery bills, and I sulk because a twelve-dollar block of guinness cheese fools me, for a moment, into thinking our life is reaching some acceptable grade of carefree.

The ‘us’ we used to be is on hiatus. At least I hope it is – a hiatus assumes a return.

In having a child, we’ve matured, become fuller, more intimate. Yet we’re mundane, disconnected. We stand together, staring off into space in the same general direction.

Two years ago, we were ourselves. I wasn’t pregnant yet.

Today we pour so much physical affection into our son, we hardly have any left for each other. Money is woe. We’ve both pressed the restart button on our careers, both wracked with insecurity. The lifestyle we treasured is gone thanks to the double-whammy of parenthood and easternhood. We both feel a little lost, shadows of who we used to be.

I used to scoff at people who’d say that marriage takes work. Whoever says that married the wrong person. I couldn’t imagine not having the energy to treasure this man.

But now, I’m a cliché. From a sparkling partnership full of adventure to a dishevelled wife in sweats with a messy kitchen, and fantastic photo albums collecting dust on the bookshelf. At least we’re still united by the same fear: being boring. But it’s upon us, and it’s soul-sucking.

I spend a lot of time convincing myself I’m content.

Hoping that somehow, just having these memories makes me who I am. But it’s not enough. Am I selfish to admit it? A shallow mother? I want more of them, more of who we were. But we’re so far removed, I don’t know what to do about it.

Thormanby is sometimes one island, sometimes two.

A huge crescent beach forms a white sand bridge at low tide, and a waterway opens to the Georgia Strait at high tide. A narrow channel dominates the journey: to get to Thormanby, you surf downhill for two hours straight.

To get home, you fight for every boat length.

A craggy bit of rock at the mouth of the crescent bay marks the turning point.

On the way home, just before pushing into the channel, you take shelter in this calm pool to gather your wits. Once you start, you can’t stop or rest. Nose to the wind, mind empty and shoulders throbbing. Everything else in your life is insignificant until you see the dock.

The sea beyond here is confused and angry as ten-foot swells converge from all directions.

You sit in the eddy watching the froth, waiting pointlessly for a break in the mayhem, an entrance point that won't come. You must paddle far beyond the crag, out into the channel in the opposite direction. Then round into the currents and wind, steering and paddling frantically, vulnerable to sidelong gusts and waves.

Head on, the kayak teeter-totters on the peak of every crest. The same climb, the same crash, a thousand times over.

You contemplate courses of action for giving up, but the tumultuous shoreline is even less appealing than open water. So you push against wind, tide and the crush of a bottleneck, working harder than you ever have in your life to progress a little better than backwards.

You set tiny milestones: that arbutus tree, that cabin, those seals. See if I can give that much more. As they lurch past, strength grows. More water lies behind than ahead.

And then you’re struck: this is fun. You relish the roar and the drench, your mechanical bull, and whoop for more. Every sensation imprints itself on you, and a great gulf opens up between what you’ve experienced and what you could ever describe.

It’s not often in life that we are truly, deeply invigorated.

Parenthood, perhaps, is one of those bright flashes, one of those great trials that bonds us. I see pregnant women now and think of waiting in that eddy, filled with uncertainty. There’s progress now, fourteen months later. Milestones passed. Some with more grace than others, but passed nonetheless.

Someday, Justin will wear black socks with shorts. I will drive Evan to school in my pyjamas. It’s our job – we are his parents, and are therefore honour-bound to embarrass him.

He’ll never know us as we know ourselves – he’ll know us as parents only. PB&J-makers. Carpool-drivers. Lecture-givers (as much as I hope not to be, it’s another inevitability, isn’t it?). We’ll nag him with the best of intentions, smother him with enthusiasm. He won’t understand us, and we won’t understand him.

He’ll never know us sunburnt and giddy from 35 hours in a VW van with six people, six bikes, three tents and a canoe. I can still taste that beer, cold and sharp in the hot moonscape of the Utah desert.

It’s just one moment of hundreds, when we were cool.

I can go for weeks without BC ever crossing my mind. But then it sneaks up behind me, whispers in my ear. And I am crippled, like I’ve lost someone dear in my life.

Close to midnight, they shut down the chairlifts at Cypress. The mountain becomes itself, as a boat does when you shut the engine off and the sails take over. The trails are deserted, the wind rustles through the trees. The mountain sighs, thankful for a rest. I’d skulk at the top waiting for that moment, waiting for the whirring and clicking to end, for my solitary ski overlooking the lights of Vancouver.

Someone is at Doc Morgan’s pub on Bowen Island, drinking my cold beer.

Someone else is paddling my kayak. Someone else is living in our tiny, one-room apartment on the north shore, which I don’t mind.

But I do mind that they’re a five minute walk away from Justin’s favourite running trail along the Seymour river.

It’s not fair. The rest of Canada should step aside so that Justin and I can be closer to BC, our exciting western mistress, while remaining loyally wedded to our good maritime wife.