Birthday #36

I am officially 36. Like it or not I am on the down hill slide to 40. Crazy to think about, because my mom was 36 once and I remember it oh so clearly:

The year was 1986, the oil industry was once again on a down turn and my dad was a casualty. I was in 7th grade and mom and dad announced that we would be moving from my beloved Tulsa, Oklahoma to sunny southern California ; my whole world was turned upside down. If there could be drag marks left on pavement by a teenage girl's lack of enthusiasm all the way across the country, I would have left them because I REALLY did not want to move. Now, I still do believe that God is sovereign over everything and at this late stage in my life I can look back and say that it was a great thing that we moved here. But when my mom was 36 and I was 13, it seemed like a bad idea. I didn't handle it well, and I don't think my mom handled it well either. We both did the best we could with what we had to work with. Thinking back, 36 seemed a lot older back then. I don't feel like the grown up my mother was expected to be back when she was my age now. I still feel, so often, like a little kid who is going to get in trouble at any time for sleeping in the same bed with a BOY and taking care of children as if they were my own. Any minute someone is going to walk in the door and say, "Jennifer R. Seymour, you get back home now!!"

But alas, it hasn't happened and when I look in the mirror at my wrinkles, slightly graying hair, tired eyes, I realize that this is real. I am a grown up. I am 36. And someday my children will be writing about how weird I was when I was 36. And believe me they will have a lot to write about. (Or possibly talk about with a well qualified and licenced professional).