The days of tiny waistbands.

When I was 16, and even as young as twelve, maybe even as young as six, five...I was old. I wasn't a "fun" kid. I wasn't really a very fun adolescent, and I definitely wasn't a fun teenager. I wouldn't say I've gotten "more fun," but now my peers are tired enough to behave like I do, and that's nice. No one asks us to stay out unreasonably late, because they all go to bed at decent hour. No one expects us to get drunk when we get together because everyone has a child (or five) to answer to in the morning. It's pure bliss. It's not that I have arrived, but that everyone else has caught up. Now we can all just be normal adults and I don't have to spend so much time wondering why I lack the motivation or interest to act like the rest of them. 

Katherine and I met in college and we might as well have been meeting at bridge club. We were born to be old and crabby together. We did try to drink several times, but we always just ended up falling asleep. Maybe if we'd been wearing our afghans and slippers and drinking elderberry wine we'd have had more success. There is nothing nicer than having a friend who shakes her head as much as you do. We have plenty of fun, but most of that fun is talking about our bunions and arthritis. 

A couple of my children are like Andrew and I in this way. Molly prefers to talk to herself, probably because Molly is the one person who can answer Molly in the appropriate manner. Miles just sits and wears an expression that says, "can't we all just watch the clouds roll by and drink root beer with our suspenders down?" I know, child, I know...I feel for them. I just hope to raise kids who are confident enough to be who they are even when the world expects them to be someone else. I wasted so much time trying to be someone I wasn't just because there were so few people like me. I wish I'd known better and spent those years just enjoying me. And being a size four.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to pluck my chin hairs and flip my pork chops.