Ages

I remember being in sixth grade on the playground holding a soccer ball in my hands and watching those who were older than me and I remembered thinking about how mature they acted, how grown up they all looked, and I wondered if I was ever going to be that mature, that grown up. They were high schoolers, some were even seniors. I knew what I felt like inside at that time, and I could not see myself ever changing into someone younger students looked up to - you know, so mature and grown up- because I felt and acted like the eleven-year-old that I was, and that is all I knew.

I remember slipping into that senior slot and reflecting back on that thought in my head from six years before while I stood on the playground at recess and thinking to myself, "This is what they acted like?!?! Were those seniors as immature as I feel , and did they act this way and I just didn't see it?" My seventeen-year-old self still felt like a sixth grader. I still giggled with my track teammates when a boy from another school asked me if I had a boyfriend and would I give him my number, and I hung out in the parking lot of Nino's every Friday night because that is what everybody who was anybody did after the varsity football games. And I wondered if anybody was looking at me with those eleven-year-old eyes thinking I was mature.

Of course, I spent time pondering the idea of age when I noticed those who were older than me, and I thought, not negatively, I am going to be that age one day and I wonder if that is what I will look like? is that how I will act? And you know, I was always just fine with whatever age I was pondering on, although it was always hard to fathom being older than the age that I was currently living.

I now find myself somehow growing into my mid-40's with a crazy-busy family and wonder how I made it this far without really realizing it was happening. It isn't that I haven't seen the crow's feet sneaking onto my face these past few years, and it isn't the fact that I have to trek to the beauty salon every five weeks to have my youth restored, and it isn't that I haven't noticed that the slacks I have been wearing for the last seven years have become tighter around my thighs and my middle. I have noticed all of it and every step of the way, too, but I still feel like I am that eleven-year-old standing on the playground. I haven't changed feeling like me. Little did I know back then that people "grow up and mature" in how they respond to life's experiences, but they never stop being who they were when they were young. I am who I am and that is all I know.

This past year in my English 10 class my students and I read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. This ended up being one of the most satisfying novels my sophomores read all year. They were moved, some to tears, by so many interesting life topics that Mitch and Morrie discussed before Morrie Schwartz died of Lou Gehrig's disease. One Tuesday the two men were discussing the topic of aging and Mitch wanted to know why Morrie wasn't envious of younger people, and Morrie replied with the idea that he had already been that age. He already knew what it was like to be those ages. What he didn't know about and hadn't experienced yet were the ages that he hadn't reached yet. One of Morrie's last comments on the topic is one of my favorite quotes from the book: "I am every age up to my own." The idea being that he can go back to any of the ages he had already been because he knows how to be that age.

I love this promise that life and memory and Morrie have given me. Yes, I am sliding into 43 by the end of the year, but I get to be any age up to 42 because I have already been there and I know how to be any of those ages. This summer I plan to be four ages, besides my own: 14, 12, 11 and 5.

Tucker is 14 so I get to be 14 again until February. I get to experience my first year of high school in the fall, and I get to practice driving the family van up and down the driveway with the radio cranked, and I get to stay up all night with my buddies being teenagers.

Emma is 12 so I get to be 12 again until December (when Emma and I share the exact same birthday). I get to figure out who my true friends are (or aren't) in my first year of middle school in the fall, and I get to actually beat my brothers every now and then at a battle of wits, and I get to paint my fingernails and toenails with neon green and silver polish to match my happy mood.

Peyton is 11 so I get to be 11 again until January. I get to be a leader in the school because it will be my last year in the elementary; I'm a sixth grader, and I get to shag baseballs in the front yard over and over to perfect my throw to second base, and I get to laugh out loud when someone intentionally makes a fool of himself or herself because it tickles my funny bone.

Tristan is 5 so I get to be 5 until next May. I get to talk about all the new friends I will make this year when I go to my first day of kindergarten, and I get to cry when I fall and scrape my knee, and I get to give lots of kisses to those I love without being called a wimp or being made fun of yet.

So, this summer is going to be a fun one because my kids are all at amazing stages in their lives, and I will be along for the ride remembering what it was like to be that age. And I get to relive it because that is what I remember and that is what I know.