Where Does the Time Go?

All of our daughters' birthdays are fairly close together. The third birthday will happen in a few days and at that point our "kids" will be 35, 37 and 40. 40? It wasn't that long ago that I was 40. Well, in my mind, anyway.

I've never been one to worry about my age. My mom got me off to a good start because her philosophy was, "It's better than the alternative!" This was unusual for women of her generation. In fact, it drove my grandmother crazy that she didn't keep her age a secret.

By the time I got old enough that I might have given my age a second thought, I was too busy to think about it at all. Once, at an appointment with a new doctor, the receptionist asked me my age and I blanked. Fortunately I was able to subtract my birth year from the current year--only possible because no borrowing was required.  

Every once in a while I'll have a "moment." When my youngest turned twenty I had one of those moments. It meant that all my kids were in their twenties. It didn't last long, just a ping announcing that time was moving along. It happened again when she turned thirty.

I've talked about how strangely time is behaving since the pandemic began, but in some ways it's always been hard to pin down. Going through old photos is an interesting walk down memory lane. Looking at photos from our early years of marriage, I hardly recognize those young people who got married and had kids. But the memories of those times are so clear that it doesn't seem possible that decades have passed.

The problem is that I'm not aging as quickly as my children are. Okay, my body is slowing down and getting achier, but my mind is better than ever. (Note to family: no snorting, please!)

I can't shake the feeling that they're catching up to me, and that someday they'll be older than I am.