I Wanna Grow Up…

A Buddhist monk in New York City walks up to a hot dog vendor, hands him $20 and says, “Make me one with everything.”

The vendor pockets the money and hands the monk his frank. After a short while, the monk says politely, “My change?” The vendor smiles and says, “Change comes from within.”

Today is my nephew’s 18^th birthday. Whoa! I need to say that again. Today is my nephew’s 18^th birthday.

I can’t believe it. I remember when he was so little that he could fit into a large turkey pan and I – affectionately, of course – called him, “Oven stuffer roaster.” (My sister wasn't too pleased with that moniker, truth be told….)

I feel like I blinked and 18 years flew by.

Fast forwarding a bit, continuing the transformation begun when I got my hair styled for the first time in 2½ years, two weeks ago I got glasses. I look undeniably “hip” (C’mon folks, humor me here…) but as I take in my new look, a voice says, “You’re getting older.”

Sadly, I’m not yet at that age where I can say whatever I want to and everyone will have to find it charming…. Of late, however, I am more of a curmudgeon than I used to be, especially when watching television, which, it seems, I have less and less interest in each day.

And there’s that little voice again saying, “This is how old people act.”

I feel like I’m being bombarded from every direction with signs that I’m aging and in the immortal words of Peter Pan, “I don’t wanna grow up.”

But then I stop and think about all the exciting aspects of growing up:

·         I can eat dessert before dinner!

·         I don’t have to eat my veggies if I don’t want them (although that’s never happened…)!

·         I can stay up (and out) as late as I want to without breaking curfew!

·         No more homework!

 Y’know what? Growing up is okay. In fact, there are lots of things I like about it. 

My absolute favorite thing about growing up has been living on my own, by which, I mean with my husband. Despite the presence of more gray hair, less patience, more aches and pains and less resilience, in the past six years with Gary, I feel like I've gotten younger. So much so, that yesterday I fairly leapt out of bed at 5 AM to get Gary ready for an early morning on the job.

I don’t typically jump out of bed at “o’dark thirty,” but yesterday was special. At 5:05 AM autumn officially began. At 5:06 AM I celebrated the arrival of autumn by dragging out my slow cooker.

Change definitely comes from within. In my case, within my stomach, and it’s all good. 

Written for The Writers’ Post weekly blog hop # 15. Theme: “Changes”