Once a week, I receive a notice to buy tickets for
my twenty-year high school reunion. I blink my eyes and shake my head in disbelief.
Was it really twenty springs ago that I fell sick with senioritis while
shopping for a prom dress, with no way to know that exactly twelve months later
I would meet my future husband?
What were you doing in 1996? Were you an energetic student
on the cusp of adulthood? Were you an exhausted new mom, thankful that the grunge
trend helped you hide your unwashed hair? Were you valiantly serving our
country? Were you a parent, fearful of the future of computers? Were you
already a grandparent, so twenty years seems like mere seconds compared to the
number of years you have lived?
Mothers hear this saying often, "The days are
long, but the years are short." It surely is a fitting mantra for the
early years of motherhood, when our lives revolve around feedings and diapers and naps on repeat. We ache for a break in
the monotony and a confidant who isn't a babbling drool monster. Then suddenly,
smack in the middle of the kids hitting elementary school, a drastic shift
occurs. Our days become short and the years even shorter.
I graduated from my Indiana high school twenty years
ago, and now our oldest child is about to become a high school student. It does
not seem possible that in five years, our son will be the same age that I was
when I fell in love with his dad. It's as if that day was yesterday, except yesterday I was a PTA mom with four kids and a husband in the
middle of a bathroom remodel, who still
hadn't caught up on Downton Abbey. Recently, I shared this strange feeling with
my own mom. She laughed and told me that while she knows she's a grandmother
and her children are in their thirties, she still feels like she's only forty.
So much can happen in a life over twenty years. What
have you done in twenty years? Are you surprised? Has it all been worth it?
As quickly as time passes, I should purchase my
tickets to the reunion before it's too late.
