How Time Flies

Today a sweet young man I know turns 21. So what, you say? People turn 21 all the time. Sure, "people" do, but not the children of my high school friends. Although, this is happening at a greater frequency, and it freaks me out a little. Ok, it freaks me out a lot.

I don't think I like the implications of the math. I have reached an age where it is not only possible to have adult children, but once children become adults they, too, can have children. This means that we are all officially old enough to be grandparents. How can this be?!?

This might have been acceptable for my grandparents' generation. My grandmother had her first child at 17, and her last at 32. Her first grandchild was born when she was 36. She worked, too, but for sheer survival. There was no higher education or carefully calculated career development. She had kids because that's just what you did as a woman. There was no family planning.

My own mother was just shy of her 21st birthday when I was born, and I wasn't her first child. By the time my mom was my age, I was out of the house and in college. I could have started having kids then, but thank goodness I didn't! The riff-raff I made time with back then wasn't exactly daddy material. I got extremely distracted and I made her wait a very long time to become a grandma. Too long, if you ask her. Maybe she's right. I don't know.

I am experiencing life pass on by quicker than I expected. I don't feel like I'll be dead any time soon, but I'm at least half way to the grave already. And then what? I feel like there's so much yet to do here, although I don't know what that is, and my momentum is slowing down. I think I'd better make the most of it. Pretty soon, Arli will be 21 and I'll be 60. Will I have grandchildren by then?

You know, I don't even want to think about it. This is just crazy insomnia thinking anyway.

Happy Birthday, Michael! You have become quite a lovely adult. You still have a long life ahead of you and I know you'll do great things.