Landslide...

”Life gets bolder, children get older, I'm getting older, too.....” (Stevie Nicks)

Sometimes, I don't even think about it. Getting older. Other times, it scares the bejeebers out of me. I don't know why. I am smart enough to realize that it is something that I cannot change. And that I have to accept it.

And mostly, I do accept it. Mostly. Well, somewhat. Okay, today I'm not accepting it at all. Why? I have so much I want to do and so little time to do it. So I have to make choices. I don't like making choices. But that's the stuff of life: choices.

I have made lots of choices in my life, some good ones and some not so good. The best part about a bad choice is that I made it, and it was not forced on me. I can live with my bad choices, just not those that others try to make for me.

Okay, this is sounding really serious. And it's not. Sort of. I am just trying to understand some things in my life. For instance, who are those adults over there and why are they calling me “Mom”? My goodness, I just had my babies a few years ago....didn't I?

My kids are the same ages as those children over there, looking at me, out of the pretty silver picture frames. Why does the inscription say “To Grandma”? What happened?

Life happened. Good, bad or indifferent, it happened. It went flying by when I wasn't looking, I guess. Or was I looking? And did some one or some thing fast forward it? Is there a fast forward button in life? Or a pause button? I think I'd rather have a pause button. I would push it every time something wonderful happened.

And then, I could savor it longer.....

Truth is, life is what it is. It happens every day and every night. Days, then weeks, then months, then years fly by. And it's been that way since time began. Who knows how much longer it will last? But then, I don't want to talk about environmental issues, or war and pestilence.

It's my blog and it's my life. And I still wonder where the heck it went. I look through the pictures from “back then” and I marvel at how young I was when I had my children. Sitting on the floor, playing with them, smiling and laughing. Yes, but could I still get up off the floor? By myself?

Of course, I could. Just gimme a minute, okay?

Really, what I am lamenting, I think, is that I don't remember everything. I just assumed that I would always remember the important things. For instance, I always thought I would remember how much each of my children weighed at birth. And now, I remember how much my daughter weighed at birth (you don't forget a nine-pounder), but I can only tell you that one of my boys weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces, and the other weighed 7 pounds, 5 ounces. I have no idea which one was which.

I think life has become inundated with data; information that must be remembered, catalogued, filed away, and kept. Forever. I guess that has occupied a lot of my time and my capacity to remember things. And really, does it matter what my daughter's third grade teacher's name was? Probably not, in the greater scheme of things.

But heaven help me if I forget my PIN number for the ATM, eh?