When did I get wrinkles (or -- hey, I thought I was still in grade school)....

Seriously, all these old people used to tell me to enjoy my babies and to hang on to the moments, because life is going to pass you by like a blur. Now it seems like that's all I talk about! One minute, I was in third grade, getting in trouble talking to Johnny-somebody, and suddenly I can't get out of my chair because my hip joints are killing me. I feel like a kid inside, but something tells me I better get responsible real quick-like. 

I've had more time for introspection in recent days....and I've realized that my big problem is that I never wanted to grow up. That's why I want to eat fudgesicles and hot dogs all the time, rather than juicing kale and lemons and such. That's also why I want to go outside and lay on the porch and look at the hummingbirds fly around, when what I need to be doing is vacuuming the floor and cleaning out the gutters. But then, what is Ken gonna do if I do all that? Bad thing is, I will vacuum the floor and scrub the toilets, but I do it in a whirling dervish and usually not when it is convenient for anyone else.  "Get out of the bathroom! I've gotta clean that thing RIGHT NOW!!!" And if the whim to do said cleaning gets interrupted or passed by, then you just don't know when it might come around again. But back to the growing up thing. When I was a kid, I had a seriously happy childhood. When I think of my past, I remember sunny, warm (actually sweltering) days in the summer, playing softball in our front yard, going to my Daddy's ballgames at various fields around Atlanta, playing in the dirt, playing "Run Away From the Orphanage" with my similarly dusty cousins, gathering Coke bottles across the railroad tracks from our MawMaw's house and turning them in for nickels, picking blackberries and muscadines from the fields behind our house, riding bikes all over the neighborhood with my best-friend sister, playing like my baby brother was my own personal baby doll, and coming back to a clean, well-lighted place which was our secure home. My Daddy was a giant kid, who actually played ball and fished with us. Our Mama was the quintessential homemaker, whose main focus in life was a clean house, warm meals on time on the table, and making sure that we behaved. So we had secure lines built into our lives; rules, but not a lot of them, and a fun Daddy to top it off. Saying all that, what kid would ever want to grow up? And I didn't want to. I remember the eve of my thirteenth birthday. We were playing out in the yard; dusk was coming on, and it was a warm, wonderful spring day in April. The lightning bugs were starting to come out and I didn't want the day to end. I sat out in the dark and cried because I didn't want to be thirteen. I didn't want to grow up and not have these kinds of feelings anymore. And somewhere in there, I knew that I would struggle with being responsible, without a parent to make me behave or do things. So I guess that's why I married Ken, besides the fact that he was a stud-muffin. He was a nutsy, fun guy, but under all that was this military dude that attracted me in mysterious ways. God is good, because He was merciful to me in all the things that He led me to.... Now I'm, well, fifty-ish and He still lets me linger with the fireflies and the hummingbirds.