HOW old am I????

A little piece of reality has crept up upon me: I am getting older. I can't stop it and I can't control it, it's just a fact. I remember when I was a teen thinking that a 40-something woman must be ancient. My God, she had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel! (Props to my friend Donna who is the first person I ever heard add the banana peel part.) My parents were in their 40's for Pete's sake and they knew nothing.


Well (insert screeching brakes sound) here I am now. It's funny, when I look in the mirror I swear a cute little twenty-something with big hair and maybe too much eyeliner winks back. When I see a photo of myself, however, it's a different story. Looking at the photos, I have aged. Not badly, but I have aged. This is never more apparent than when hanging with a younger crowd.

We spent our afternoon with some friends today who are a lot younger than us. We are at the same point in life; however, they married and had a family a lot earlier than we did. The husband and wife are ages 30 and 29, respectively, and their kids are 8 and 5. An incredibly nice family. We hung out at their house, watched sports, talked, the kids played. The age difference is not apparent (well, unless you LOOK at us). They are excited because their kids will be in college when they are in their 40s and they will be OUR AGE and free to do as they please. However, they make the point that they did not have the freedom of their younger years to make mistakes and enjoy life; they had kids young and married young. We had a LOT of fun in our twenties, married in our 30s and had kids when we were almost 40.

I don't know if there is an ideal time to do things in life. Different things work for different people. I would have been a crappy mother at age 25...was way too self-absorbed and immature. I am glad I had my 20's to explore, make a LOT of mistakes, make a lot of good decisions, and learn about the kind of person I was and wanted to be. I guess I feel like I am a better mother because I had the benefit of getting a lot "out of my system"as they call it. i don't feel like I am missing out on anything life has to offer; to use a well-worn and tired expression, "been there, done that."

I do think the one funny thing is...I really haven't changed all that much. The one thing that has changed, however, is that the party needs to be much earlier. For example, I still love to go out, drink a bunch, eat a bunch, but....I cannot rally and go out after that. It's one round of partying, max. And if the party starts at 3pm and ends at 9pm, all the better. Then I must go to bed. if I don't get enough sleep, i can do nothing the next day. This is a sharp contrast to the girl who could come in from partying at 3, go to work by 9, then do the whole thing again the next night. if I tried that now, I would die.

I stay out late sometimes - and I hate it. The next day I am USELESS...if I don't have 1 or 2 naps, the whole day is shot; and mind you, the whole day is shot anyway, because I have to sleep so much I can't do anything anyway.

Time is a funny thing...as we age, we become more confident, more content, and more in control of what we do with our free time. Trouble is, we're too tired to enjoy it...