Maybe it's not all that weird, really, but every now and then I get to thinking about the passing of time, especially how it quietly leaks by and I don't really notice it happening. The older I get, the more I am aware of this.
For example: I was 24 years old when I first began to teach in public school for the 1980-81 school year. The kindergartners were six by the time the school year was over, and the high school seniors were 18. I was only six years older than they were! Now I am 62, the seniors are 56, and those little tiny kindergartners are 44. That seems so WRONG!! I have only seen one of those students since then, and that was long ago. So in my mind they are frozen at the ages they were in 1981. They probably wish my imaginations were correct.
Here's another one: I am now a year older than my mother was when I graduated from high school. I have no idea where she found the energy to keep up with me! I didn't have my own car, but I did get rides to and from most school functions with friends, which took some of the load off my parents. But now I fully appreciate how much sleep they must have lost waiting up for me to get back from band and choir activities. At least I didn't go to keggars and parties!
Our oldest "child" is now seven years older older than my husband and I were when we got married. That, too, boggles the mind. I remember the day I realized one of the children I used to babysit was old enough to babysit my own child. And the teens who used to babysit my three children now have teens of their own.
This makes my head hurt, so I am going to stop.
