Floods of Memories

My daughter is sick today and I home caring for her. This equates to way too much time to play online instead of doing laundry while she naps her grumps away. It also means more time for reflection.

Although I'm not sure whether I'll attend this 10 year reunion, I am hoping to catch base with old friends. Isn't that everyone's goal? To not actually have to attend, to not have to see those select few you hope aren't attending but still be able to reunite with those people you never should have lost.

I am jealous of my daughter sometimes; of her outlook on life. She is a toddler still and to her there 4 groups of people: babies, kids, teenagers and grown-ups. But I am all too familar with the turmoil of the in-between. Am I a grown-up? Do grown-ups have these same fears and anxieties that I have? I would imagine they do. I can't believe that at 27 I already understand the expression "Youth is wasted on the young." Imagine what I could accomplish with the same energy, foolishness and drive of a 19-year-old.

Then there are the days when I feel much older than my age. The days that I am challenged at work and then go to pick up my daughter to school only to find that she's had an accident and no one's noticed so that her pants are sticky and smell of urine. In her classroom, I find multiple incident reports. Reports which are like the grown-up versions of tattling. Today she misbehaved and those listening ears are not quite working still. Oh, how I'd love to sign, "Bite me, they're toddlers." instead of my name. Then on to the house where I get to start dinner, field calls, clean up, and put in a load of laundry all while balancing this 34 pound bundle of energy in my arms, or attached to my leg, climbing up on me, or better still, lying on the floor of the kitchen coloring on the linoleum with her washable markers just behind me so that as I turn from the stove to dump the hot pasta water in the sink, I trip over her criss-crossed legs.

Ten years. They passed so slowly individually until all of a sudden their culmination surprised me. I am eager to hear of the changes in everyone's lives. I am eager to tell my story and realize that, I, too, have changed in their eyes.