The other day my Dad happened to run into a high school friend of mine. My Dad wasted no time telling me how great my friend looked, commenting that it didn’t look like she had aged a day since 18. Then he added, with a chuckle, “What happened to you?”
Thanks, Dad.
(In all fairness, my Dad’s humor is one of my favorite things about him. He has a zest for storytelling and has great comedic timing. I like to think I get a little bit of that from him, so this comment was not meant to be cruel.)
This friend is indeed beautiful and is expecting her first bundle of joy this summer. Her face is tight, the skin bright, and she glows with the light of growing new life.
But me? I’ve been run over. By life.
I explain to my Dad: “You see, Dad, I’ve been living a hard life since 18. I did all the crimes and now my face must do the time. I spent too many late nights where I stayed out with my friends and older guys (i.e Shawn) making bad decisions.
Then I convinced the older man to marry me, which took untold (wo)man-hours and stress. After learning that he wasn’t independently wealthy, I made the (right) decision to marry for love anyway. Since two incomes were needed I was then resigned to a life of hard labor in the bowels of the public education system.
We decided if we couldn’t be rich, we might as well have fun. We bought things on credit and acted like we didn’t have bills. We bought a boat and floated and drank Busch Light on the river in the summer sun with our friends, who were also poor. We spent the colder months throwing elaborate theme parties at the local bars to entertain ourselves.
Then we decided fast-living wasn’t enough for us, we wanted to travel at light speed, so we procreated. After we created our STAWN spawn, we slept even less, cried more, and fought over whose turn it was to cook or do the dishes.
We worked harder in our jobs, lived OVER our means, took on a mortgage anyway, drank copious amounts of coffee, navigated a large learning curve of keeping babies alive with 2 hours of sleep, figured out how to keep our septic from backing up, were shocked about the cost of home reno and repair, made adult decisions without asking our parents what to do, and grew the crap up while also trying to help our own kids grow up.
Now, we live a life full of meetings, networking, student /educational crisis, resource allocation, collaboration, budgets, public relations, arguing with kids about eating their vegetables and running all over creation for their activities.
We also spend endless amounts of time picking up an unbelievable array of small, plastic toys, telling kids to pick up their shoes seventeen times, reminding them of their chores, tricking them into taking their vitamins, and explaining why peeing outside is something we encourage at certain times, it most certainly is NOT acceptable to pee in the front yard where neighbors can see.
And we lecture our kids about things that to them matter not at all; turning off the lights, making sure the faucets are always off, why they should keep their dirty hands off the walls, and that even though the dang hoverboard is FUN, it is damaging the woodwork.
It’s like we have actually turned in our parents.
And so now, most nights I wear a sweatshirt to bed, I carry a pair of glasses in my purse in case my eyes get tired, date nights consist of getting groceries, and Sensodyne is our preferred toothpaste. We spend time talking in real terms about college savings and planning for retirement; we go to bed early and unfathomably seem to be more tired, and putting on jeans seems insurmountable on weekends.
I always thought that getting old would make me sad. But I’m not. I am too old to run fast. And I have had a ton of fun. My face sliding off my skull at an alarming rate is a badge of honor.
I am old. I know it. My face shows it – laugh lines from the first 25 years of life when I approached all things with curiosity and laughed at all the ridiculous things I did but lived through, by the grace of God. Worry lines from the last 11 or so years when I have tried my best to rear children and hope and pray like hell that they will make it to adulthood unscathed.
And THAT is what happened, Dad.
Love,
Stef