In a Timely Manner

I seem to circle back to the same themes in my head over and over. These thoughts mostly creep in as I am  driving (which seems to be half of my waking hours). This morning as I was cruising down the road in my silver Ford Escape rocking out to Weezer while snacking on prunes, I wondered "Is this the portrait of the aging GenXer? Are we hip old farts? Wait a minute, isn't that what the Baby Boomers thought of themselves as the drove along in their Subarus rocking out to the Who eating their prunes?" Anyway, the thought that I had originally started with was "Damn, I've reached that age where there are many foods that I can't eat, and some that I must eat or I will suffer the consequences." That sucks. And yet, I roll with it. I am at the comfortable age where you can be sitting down sipping wine with your girlfriends and someone will casually bring up the name of some new anti-nausea/anti-gas medicine that her doctor recommended and no one is horrified. No, they are riveted.

Ok, so getting older kind of stinks. There is hair growing in places where you don't wish it too, everything seems to be headed south, from your memory to your butt (except mine which is going south and east and west, how is that fair?). The thing is, you don't really let it slow you down. At least I don't. I have too many other things to worry about: refinancing, keeping the girls alive and functioning, teaching, keeping the dog, the turtle, the rabbit and my spouse alive and functioning... I really can't loose sleep over stray hairs or tricky grown up tummys.

Of course this thought segued into comparing the me of now with the me of my youth. Right now I am lucky enough to be spending time with my 14 year old daughter and 20ish cousin. I listen to Caroline's passion and conviction and her opinions (Does anyone want to come take a turn listening to her opinions? She has plenty of them. We don't mind letting someone else have a turn listening.). She is just starting out and has so much idealism (with a surprising amount of cynicism). Then I listen to my cousin. He is nothing but possibility right now. His path is beginning and can be anything. So I was thinking: "What if we could combine passion with possibility with realism with wisdom? How amazing a person I would be if I could combine 14 year old Melissa with 20 year Melissa with Melissa now?  However it is impossible because you can't reach wisdom without having hit some stumbling blocks. Those stumbling blocks are largely built from idealism, naivete, and arrogance. Those things are, of course, all the things that aggravate all of us old farts about the youth of today. Unless of course you are me who loves them and finds them fascinating (mostly). Especially when they share their music with me and don't tease me about the hidden stash of prunes in the glove box of my "Mommobile."


P.S. Hopefully, I hit less traffic in the future which will lead to less rambling posts.