The Big Plan

It amazes me how people change over the years. Physically, that is. What time can do is often cruel, but as I grow older it seems less cruel, and more interesting to see.

I have come into contact the last couple of years with people I knew when I was much younger and the changes that time have taken are obvious. Not in a bad way, though. Never in a bad way. The one thing that seems to always stay the same, though, are the eyes. On MySpace, they have a page for your high school alumni. I've searched through it, trying to recognize people, and aside from two or three, I just don't recognize any of them. It's an odd feeling. You spend 12 years going to school with these people and your mind tells you that you should recognize them... but you don't. It may be a bit different for me, though, because I never really kept in touch with those that I attended school with. But these people from my past that I have contacted again after so many years, I doubt I would have recognized them, if not for the eyes.

And on the opposite end of the scale, I don't notice the changes in those closest to me. I asked my mom one time... "Why can't I see my son as grown man? How come he still looks 16 to me?" She told me that was normal, but she assured me my son looked like a grown man, even though I would probably not ever be able to see it. I look at my parents, and although my Dad is just a couple of years away from 70, he still just looks like Dad. My grandmother, 104, still just looks like Nanny. Mom is just Mom. Now... when I look at my brothers, it's a bit different, but I think that has to do with the fact I don't seem them very often.

And then there's me. I feel I've aged quite a bit in just the last 5 years or so. Stress and the like can do bad things to a body. But I'm not terribly freaked out about it. But I wonder, when I see past friends, if they think to themselves, "WOW, she's gotten OLD!" And I know I have. A few years ago, after going through quite a bit of stress (midlife crisis), lots of drugs (prescribed by a psychiatrist), that I saw what stress and time can do to one's face. It was after I got off the drugs that I one day looked in the mirror and I will never forget seeing an old face staring back at me and me thinking, God I've aged! When did this happen??! I wonder, though... do we ALL hit a point where we look in the mirror and see old?

So I decided that on this day, the start of my weekend, I am going to do things to make me feel younger. Like maybe coloring my hair... working in the flowerbeds... running around and playing in the sprinkler. Okay, probably not that last one. I've gotten use to the gray hair framing my face. My fear is that I will color my hair, and instead of looking younger, I'll just look like an old fart with colored hair. The line is divided between my friends now. Some say color (my daughter is the loudest on this one because she tells me I'm NOT old, so quit trying to BE old) and some say wear my gray with pride. HA! Maybe I'll start a Gray Pride March.