June 18, 2005
Just when you think tomorrow will never come, it’s yesterday!
I faintly remember thinking tomorrow would never come once.
That was when I was changing diapers for two toddlers and was so exhausted I could not possibly stay awake past 9 p.m.
Well into many a night though, I found myself folding laundry and sorting white socks for four boys (toddlers included).
The sock piles were neat, yet they seemed to have no beginning or end.
Time refused to move along, not budging for anything or anyone, and, indeed, what a trickster that Old Man Time was.
He was moving along all right, just hid it from me well.
Now twenty-some years have passed, as my Grandmother used to say, “quicker than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers!”
To my surprise however, something amazing happened between then and now.
It was nothing short of a parade of life’s best and worst moments, all encompassed in the glorious task of raising precious lives entrusted to us by some Supreme Power who apparently thought we could do this.
Apparently, we have.
Our last 18-year-old has moved out, college-bound, and, by the way, everyone turned out just fine.
What’s more, we loved every second of it.
Yet, I can’t help but ponder how one goes from the lively and constant activity of toddlers, and then, teenagers to the silence of a house, now filled only with quiet adults and quiet pursuits long forgotten.
With wonder though, we seem to find each stage interesting, scary, and exciting as only something brand new can be.
I believe it was Mark Twain who once said, “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
And it was George Burns who sang about wishing he could be 18 again.
So as our 18-year-olds begin their new lives as official adults, they will also be living in one of the most exciting times of their lives.
They are invincible, their bodies work well, for the most part, and they have nothing but the thrill of the unknown ahead.
At 50/60-something, we know what’s ahead and I don’t see anything very thrilling, our bodies don’t cooperate, and we are on decidedly uncertain ground—life without kids.
My neighbors, Susan and Bill, said it took them two weeks.
