A few weeks ago I got to spend the afternoon with my oldest friend. By oldest I mean longest-standing friendship. I have literally known her since I was 2. We hadn't seen each other in 7 years and I was shocked when she came up my sidewalk. I barely recognized her, this dear friend I used to see nearly every day for nearly 17 years. She looked so . . .old. I feel horrible even saying that; it sounds like such vanity and ridiculousness. My dear friend is my age and does not really look older than our 33 years. It was just that in my mind I see the teenagers we were, not the women we are. It was a jolt for me to immediately recognize her husband(whom I didn't meet until he was already in his mid-twenties) and to look at her and think "That can't be her can it? Much too mature." Ack.
That day after we had lunch I came home and looked in the mirror. Truly looked, and tried to remember my face as she must have been remembering it that morning. This may sound crazy, but I still usually feel like that loud, clueless, hyper, un-controlled young woman from 15 years ago. Despite the 4 kids and a decade of marriage and all that living I've been doing it still shocks me to think that my children, and people I meet now only see me as I am now. It doesn't seem strange to them for me to be a mother, or a wife or a homeowner or whatnot. It doesn't seem strange because they too are mothers and fathers and spouses and employees. They drop their kids at school and work and live like adults too. It made me wonder whether other people are surprised by their own maturity sometimes too? The strange-ness of imagining all of this struck me as hilarious. So I laughed and stopped staring in the mirror and went back to my life.
Then I had a conversation with a dear friend about how certain lifestyles "feel" more aligned with how we are designed by God, and how that pulls at both of us when we get a taste. She had been with some friends at an apple orchard and got a glimpse of a more rural, earthy life than she lives. Since we're both from more rural settings originally, I knew exactly what she meant. I live in a fairly large city, and the lack of open space and silence and overabundance of cement often chafes my soul. I miss cornfields and hay bales and empty fields I could wander through without worrying about trespassing(because I knew ALL my neighbors) or crime or safety. When I think of my kids looking back at their childhood one day, it makes me sad to think they may not have memories of building dams in little creeks or endless space to build forts and have adventures. Their lives will be different. Not bad, just different and sometimes it makes me wish things in our life were different.
Such is the wandering state of my mind. How about you?
