Thursday, March 11, 2010

ma'am

of all the milestones to happen tonight. it's one i hadn't thought about until it happened, too, which is totally rare for me. usually i'm the one who remembers EVERYTHING. for example, "oh yeah, that was prom senior year. you went with so-and-so, and she wore that blue dress, and you jumped the curb leaving the restaurant..." meanwhile, the person to whom i'm telling this story, who double-dated with me, is staring at me like i'm speaking esperanto.

but tonight it's official: i've known the other boy for half my life. the mock-congress kids were at school tonight, using all our classrooms, running around and being teenagers. [shudder] they were sweet enough, and they reminded me of when the other boy and i were mock-congress kids. that's how we met, after all. but that was a decade and a half ago. the advisors at this event were younger than me. and every single kid i saw called me "ma'am."

oh, sweet lord. i like to think of myself as young. i still feel pretty young. but it's becoming increasingly apparent that while young may be a state of mind, it's an illusory state of mind. i am almost thirty. i am "ma'am." and the time i have to misspend on ridiculous things that drain me is limited, getting more limited every day. this whole other-boy thing just shows me that it's time, NOW, to go after what i want. the world has turned and left me here. best not waste another second.

4 comments:

  1. I turn 30 this year; reconciling that in my mind has given me good and bad days.

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  2. For guys it's when we realize we're older than most of the Playmates. What?!? Although this usually happens a lot earlier than 30. Feel lucky, miss.

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  3. FD - i started getting the "time is passing me by" feeling when the baseball draft came around last year, and they announced on ESPN that the first-ever player to have been born in the 1990s was drafted. i almost fell off the couch. there are now pro ball players who were born after "nevermind" came out. i don't like this at all.

    jessica - i've made valiant attempts to hit this milestone gracefully, and so far, all i've been able to muster is a deep and abiding gratitude for permanent hair color. i think it started really hitting home my first year of law school, when someone said to me, "wow, i saw your facebook page, and i had no idea you were THAT OLD." gaah!

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  4. Oh, man! You had to go and mention ball players born after "nevermind." Now that creak in my knee earlier today seems a lot more significant. Now I have to go out and do something to affirm my youthful state of mind. Except it's raining here in the District and it's going to rain all weekend. Perhaps a lot of alcohol? I can do that inside and then wake up the next morning feeling like I did when I was 23. Crappy.

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