At fifty one, I feel no different than at thirty one, in mind a least. Body is a little different. Last weekend I went to my great nephew’s baby shower. How can that be? How can I be a great aunt? I am my nephew’s godmother, and he was the first grandchild. I didn’t have any kids the first year or two he was born, and I spent a lot of time with him. Now, he’s a father. Blows my mind.
My two aunts lived on the other side of our duplex growing up. They were seventeen and twenty one when I was born. They are now sixty eight and seventy two. I don’t know how that happened. I guess I was busy raising my kids as the years were flying by.
I have two great aunts. They were my two favorite aunts because they were funny and laughed a lot and got everybody going at get togethers. They were always kind to me, and I appreciated that. They are now ninety three and ninety six. It is mind boggling.
My daughter is twenty two and can drink in a bar. When did that happen? I can see her getting off the bus, hell, I can see me taking her into pre school. One moment I couldn’t wait for my three kids to grow up, and the next, they are grown. I have a twenty two year old daughter, it doesn’t seem real.
My son is twenty and got his own apartment. He bought a bed and dishes and food and silverware and glasses and pots and pans. How is this happening, I feel like I’m still trying to get him to eat his peas. He is six foot three or four, works full time, drives, and lives in a city. We live in the country. He loves it. It’s much more exciting to him. Where are those years, it’s as if they disappear into thin air.
My youngest is about to turn seventeen. He has his permit and in a couple of months he’ll have his license. How is this possible? I was just giving him his sippee cup. Now, he’ll be driving himself to his friends’.
My second cousins who I used to look up to as a kid, and I would listen to them talk from the sidelines, are all in their sixties. My parents have both passed away, but they would have been seventy six and eighty two. I still picture them as they looked when I was a kid. When people say to enjoy the time you have because the years go by fast, they obviously had experience to support them.
My huge Italian family I knew growing up is narrowed down to 8 second cousins, two great aunts, and four aunts. My grandmother never had enough room in her small house for everybody not to be crowded, and now, they’d be able to all fit around the dining room table. There used to be twenty seven in our family, now there are thirteen.
My best friend will be a grandmother. We’ve been friends for twenty three years, we watched our kids grow up, now they are and we don’t know how the years flew by. Was it when they were learning to tie their shoes and zip their coats?
Was it while shuffling them back and forth to softball and basketball practices and games, for years? Was it when they learned to ride their bikes without training wheels? Was it while I was watching them sleigh ride down our hill? Maybe it was when they became teenagers and started working at sixteen, and got their licenses, and their independence, and their accidents and tickets. Whenever it was, it happened, and here I sit. Feeling thirty, but having to say fifty one.
I have to agree, time flys by, especially when we aren’t paying attention.
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Susan Thom is the mother of three children, two sons, 17 and 21, and a daughter 22. Writing calms her, and gives her a place to go. By herself! Clears the head and gets it out. She lives in a rural area, with a lake and mountains, her son and her partner, and has loved writing since she was a child.
She certainly hopes you enjoy her take on life, and her style of communicating that in stories.
She has been on a journey of self discovery for twenty years, and has learned many things about the human mind, and how to maintain some semblance of calm and peace within.
If someone reads one of her stories, and relates to her feelings, and maybe gets a suggestion on how she dealt with them in a positive way, that would be the ultimate gift of her writing.
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