How old do you want to be when you grow up?

Birthday Girl!

This weekend my sisters and I joined our mother as she celebrated her 80th birthday.  That sounds rather grown up, a respectable accumulation of years that must amount to a certain amount of dignity and at the very least, a tenacity that would require a mature heart.  Yet after this past weekend with my sisters (and we are all over 50) and travelling back to Texas with my mother - I must confess we are all imposter's.

I had a conversation with my oldest daughter at one point in her (adult?) life about how she wanted to enjoy her life while she was young....before she grew up.  My biggest failing at that point in time was not telling her that if she was lucky, that would never happen.  We have all seen those people that surely must have succeeded in growing up.  I have personally worked for a few.  Their faces are drawn in the permanent frown; their laughter (if and when it happens) comes out like a bark....almost as if surprising themselves, and everyone around them is on edge, not certain which way the emotion is going to go.


silly sisters

code names optional

We sisters carefully planned our trip so that we would arrive at the airport within an hour of each other.  United Airlines quickly foiled our plans and soon delayed sister Katy by as much as five plus hours.  Mom reacted quickly by simply calling a shuttle and then the texts started to fly between us girls as if we were teenagers.  We all resumed our childhood roles and being the oldest (not the bossiest) I took control.  We laughed inappropriately, i.e. when asking mom to take a group photo of us and then realized later she took several "selfies", we texted back and forth untruths to each other (just as we did when we were younger) although then we did not have the benefit of technology, forgot how old we were in public and assigned code names to each other as if we were kids.  And for a short while, we were.



As Mom and I were waiting at the gate for our plane, I told her that because she was 80 YEARS OLD, she needed to get a pre-board pass so she could get on first.  She said only if I would get it for her - which I did.  I was planning on boarding in my regular spot (A16 -nothing wrong with that) but she said I needed to come with her or she wasn't going early (so stubborn).  As we boarded, we had the common courtesy to let the blind woman and her dog and those in wheel chairs go first but I swear, my mom worked up a bit of a limp and took her own sweet time going down the ramp because as I mentioned early - age does not the grown-up make.  She may not be faking the age (although she looks marvelous) but she is definitely faking the grown-up gig, and I was her knowing accomplice. 

May I grow up as gracefully!

Until next time,

Kari