I had an epiphany the other day--I'm not a teenager anymore. It happened while I was trying to get through another day. I pulled out the DVDs of "My So-Called Life" that I obsessed over in college. Maybe it's something about feeling old that made me want to travel back there, where life was less complicated but we thought it was as complicated as life could get.
I'm coming to a close of my self-determined child-bearing years. But I guess in the back of my mind, I always felt like I was still a kid. You know, when the entire world was at your fingertips. So many chances to get it right, so many decisions to make.
But I know that most of my decisions are made now. There really aren't many left. Now, I have to sit back and let the rest of life happen to me, instead of choosing my own paths. And it doesn't help that I look in the mirror and I'm amazed to find that youth is gone from my face and my body.
There's something about that coming-of-age time of your life. I want it back, but I'm so beyond it. It took me over ten years to realize how beyond it I've become. Now I'm the mom left at home as my daughter goes off to school. I'm the one waiting until she returns. The one behind the closed door. I'm the one that will probably embarrass my daughter in a couple years, the way my mom used to embarrass me. I'm the one she'll be begging to "stop singing" or "could you just walk a couple feet in front of me?"
I'm ashamed to admit when I was in fifth/sixth grade, my mom used to drive this enormous brown van. I refused to walk into the store with my mom to pick up a few groceries, because I had seen two boys in my grade riding their bikes on main street. So when she went into the store, I fell to the floor of the van, lying in fetal position, just trying to avoid being seen by anybody, but especially the two boys. I remember the feel of the bumpy vinyl floor on my cheek and I especially remember how I felt when I heard knocking from the window of the van and looked up to see the two boys looking down at me on the floor. Wow—I just know that I've got it coming back to me.
I guess I get to watch it happen now to my daughters. They get to have their most alive time now. I guess this is the way life works. We don't get to stay kids forever. It's such a short time but its impact is lifelong. Like the difference between a shooting star—so radiant and fleeting, and so amazing—and just another stagnant star in the sky. Barely noticeable when you look up among all the rest.
