More On Aging

How does one go from looking forward to getting older to resenting it in less than two years? If I think about it, the process has actually only taken three months.  It began when we moved to Idaho.

During the four years we spent in the mountains, I had always been the youngest by one or two if not the youngest adult at church.  My friend who had children the age of my children and who served with me in Primary that entire time, was 11 years older than me.  The other women were retirement age.  At school there were moms younger than me, but it seemed that more of them were older.  At least that was true of the parents I hung out with.  Getting older did indeed give me added validity.

Here we live in a community filled with families.  There are certainly parents older than I. More seem younger.  Many of my kids' teachers are younger than I.  

Though I've had this blog for 2 1/2 years, it's only since we moved that I've really entered the "blogging" community.  (What can I say?  I'm a little lonely.  It's easier to sit here and make pretend friends on line than it is to go "out there" and find real ones.)  I am finding that many of my fellow bloggers are very young.  Like, I-would-have-hired-you-to-baby-sit-my-kids-or-could-have-been-your-Young-Women-leader-a-few-years-back, kind of young.  I am grateful for anyone over the age of 30 who blogs.

It's not really age that's the problem.  I'm fine with that.  I have no reservations telling anyone who asks.  I am 34.  I will be 35 in January.  This is not ancient.  It's the increasing number of adults who were kids when I was already an adult that makes me feel old.  Twice recently I have been "complimented" on the fact that I don't look old enough to have two middle schoolers.  Ok, yeah, that's nice, thank you.  But this really says to me, wow, you are OLD.  Suddenly I feel it.

Today, I was helping in #3s class.  Her teacher had read them a book about desert life and was pulling up the internet right there on the classroom pull down screen to research both the author of the book and desert life.  He was having trouble getting their attention.  I couldn't believe it.  This was such cool technology, amazing compared to the reel to reel films I watched in  elementary school.  And I said so.  The kids gave me a blank stare.  They have no idea what a film reel is.  The teacher (only about 6 years my junior) said, "Oh come on, you're not that old."  Well, yes.  If having watched films on a projector makes me old, then yes, I am that old.  Video technology was certainly there in the very early 80s, but it was expensive, I never saw it in a classroom until maybe 6th or 7th grade.  

You know,  it's a lie that my attitude changed only with the move.  I suddenly remember posting about the girls' middle school dance.  That made me feel old, too.  And that was June.  Well, perhaps the move has just accelerated the inevitable.  My baby is about to turn 7, and I am about to turn into a fogey.  Maybe that's okay.  I'll be good at it.  I have a lot of old person habits already.  I'm always cold, I knit, and Larry and I do the crossword.  I'm sure there's more to that list, but I can't recall.  My memory is going.

Where's my flannel blanket?