Full Circle
"Your new principal is young." I informed my kids.
"So how old is she?" Zara asked.
"I don't know. She looks around my age." I responded.
"But that makes her old!", my child informed me.
Well, I am 38 going onto 100 apparently. I consider myself fairly young. In my mind's eye, I still look the way I looked at 18. The mirror is not my best friend. It tells me things I don't want to hear. Sometimes, when I catch a glimpse of my love handles protruding over my jeans, I am shocked. When did this happen? Whatever happened to that flat belly, the skinny girl ribs that jutted just above it?
But all clouds have silver linings. The cushion of fat does make me more huggable. Also, I read somewhere that a little fat is a good thing. It comes in handy in times of need. Should calamity ever strike, I will outlive my skinny friends!
My daughter is the skinny girl now. A term I know she hates, the same way I did all those years back. I am the cushy lap she likes placing herself on.
Their father doesn't escape unscathed either. (Thank goodness!) We are the old people who listen to old music that apparently nobody likes! My phone is a source of complete ridicule at home. My lack of technical skills a thing of wonder.
Where, perhaps, all of this should leave me feeling bruised; I find myself enjoying their amusement. It's funny laughing with them over myself.
There is nothing like your children's honesty to bring you resounding back to earth if there ever was a chance that you might start thinking too much of yourself.
The reason all this amuses me is because it takes me back to how I used to feel about my parents and still do at times! I remember chuckling with my sister over my father's music cassettes labelled "latest hits" - the songs were only thirty years old. My mother never was any good at negotiating anything even remotely technical and it always made us kids feel so superior simply because we knew how to use the remote. I remember the time my mother washed down my father's newest acquisition, a cordless phone bought on a trip to Japan, with soap and water. She was quite shocked that the phone would not work after the through washing. As I listen to my kids' laughter, it's with a feeling of deja vu.
Our parents always laughed along with us three kids at our attempts at wit at their expense and their generosity of spirit taught us three offsprings, to laugh at ourselves as well. After all, wasn't it Shakespeare who said something about life being a stage and all of us comedians! May as well laugh as much as you can before the final curtain call.
In the end, life is a full circle even if our kids have us pegged as squares.
"So how old is she?" Zara asked.
"I don't know. She looks around my age." I responded.
"But that makes her old!", my child informed me.
Well, I am 38 going onto 100 apparently. I consider myself fairly young. In my mind's eye, I still look the way I looked at 18. The mirror is not my best friend. It tells me things I don't want to hear. Sometimes, when I catch a glimpse of my love handles protruding over my jeans, I am shocked. When did this happen? Whatever happened to that flat belly, the skinny girl ribs that jutted just above it?
But all clouds have silver linings. The cushion of fat does make me more huggable. Also, I read somewhere that a little fat is a good thing. It comes in handy in times of need. Should calamity ever strike, I will outlive my skinny friends!
My daughter is the skinny girl now. A term I know she hates, the same way I did all those years back. I am the cushy lap she likes placing herself on.
Their father doesn't escape unscathed either. (Thank goodness!) We are the old people who listen to old music that apparently nobody likes! My phone is a source of complete ridicule at home. My lack of technical skills a thing of wonder.
Where, perhaps, all of this should leave me feeling bruised; I find myself enjoying their amusement. It's funny laughing with them over myself.
There is nothing like your children's honesty to bring you resounding back to earth if there ever was a chance that you might start thinking too much of yourself.
The reason all this amuses me is because it takes me back to how I used to feel about my parents and still do at times! I remember chuckling with my sister over my father's music cassettes labelled "latest hits" - the songs were only thirty years old. My mother never was any good at negotiating anything even remotely technical and it always made us kids feel so superior simply because we knew how to use the remote. I remember the time my mother washed down my father's newest acquisition, a cordless phone bought on a trip to Japan, with soap and water. She was quite shocked that the phone would not work after the through washing. As I listen to my kids' laughter, it's with a feeling of deja vu.
Our parents always laughed along with us three kids at our attempts at wit at their expense and their generosity of spirit taught us three offsprings, to laugh at ourselves as well. After all, wasn't it Shakespeare who said something about life being a stage and all of us comedians! May as well laugh as much as you can before the final curtain call.
In the end, life is a full circle even if our kids have us pegged as squares.