Age and the Inexorable March Towards Death

Did you know that, next year, there will be young men and women graduating from high school that weren't born until 1988? I remember 1988! I turned 9 shortly after Bush was elected president. That's George H. W. Bush. You know, Dubya's dad? Could 1988 really be 17 years ago? I also remember being 17. That was just back in 1996. Almost 10 years ago! Holy mackerel that's a long time ago. I can only imagine how it must feel for those of you that are actually old!

On a related note, as the brickfamily and I were leaving McLean Community Park last night on the way to Bed, Bath, and Beyond at Tyson's Corner (wow, I sound old and boring in this sentence) we saw a girl leaving the McLean Library. I said "Oh, that's cute! That little girl is spending some of her summer at the library." Then, said little girl walks up to a car and open's the driver's side door, gets in and drives away! Ouch!

And finally, this leads me to my conclusion: old is a state of mind. I'll be twenty-six in a few months. So will a lot of my friends back in WA. So why do I feel so much older than them? Brickbaby. Having a child brings so much joy it's almost unbelievable. But it aslo brings crushing responsibility. You are responsible for raising this child into a decent human being and, if you buy into a lot of the parenting books/magazines out there, you're on the brink of permanently ruining his life every second of every day. DON'T SCREW HIM UP! This is something that my friends without kids (those that got out of Yakima after high school, seriously, since just about everyone I know that stayed ended up having a kid within two years) can't really fathom. I'm not saying that they don't understand, it's just that they don't, well, understand the magnitude of it. And no, unless you could leave your baby at home alone with a bowl of food, having a dog is not even close to the same thing. So I guess that's why I seem so much older to myself than other people my age seem to me. Of course, in terms of life development, I've almost always been ahead of the curve: married at 20, real job at 22, child at 23, mortgage at 25, etc. But hey, I still love my life and I don't regret getting old. It was bound to happen eventually.