Last weekend I spent an hour looking at totally fun, embarrassing, over-the-top stupid photographs of me and my friends from college.  Why I still have these is anyone’s psychoanalytic guess.  In any case, it was a couple of hours I couldashouldawoulda spent grading essays or something equally mind frying and responsibility-fulfulling.  It was an hour spent reliving some fun times…carefree, bullet-proof times.

I found the photos when I was cleaning out one of the third floor bedrooms for Luke, who, blah blah, turns 11 next week.   Which…I don’t seem to be taking well.  But that’s a whole nother blog.  Yes, grammar vixens – a whole nother.  Blog.  I’m making up words AND making one word sentences.  Which is ca-razy for an English teacher, isn’t it?  I mean, really crazy.  Kooky crazy.  Like I was in college crazy.  Right?

Oh, whatever.  I give up.  Maybe I’m not crazy anymore.  I’m a mother of three, one of whom seems to suddenly have one foot out the door.  I’m slightly quirky, perhaps.  (But, admittedly, that’s probably just my lack of short term memory standing at attention for all to salute.  That, or the fact that when someone is speaking to me, my mind is quite literally listing the 37 things I need to accomplish before bed that night, so I appear … how shall we say it?  Askew. But certainly not college crazy- crazy.)

I still make totally spontaneous plans — but, admittedly and sadly, more often than not, I then have to break them, because I haven’t consulted any of the calendars – PLURAL – (the one on the counter, the one on my computer, the one in my purse) – and god knows that’s a horrible mistake.  I still have ginormous plans to go there, do that, accomplish this, conquer that…I just get terribly, um, tired as I go.

I mean seriously.   Somewhere along the way I started using the word “perhaps”.  Who DOES that?  An old lady, that’s who.

My kids are growing up and older, and I’m growing wrinkles and cellulite.  This seems unfair.  Gone are the days of pizza at 2am and a 6 mile run at dawn.  No more all nighters for this girl.  I’m kind of dragging at work these days if I’m up much past 9:30.  It’s pathetic.  But there it is.  All true.  I have black circles.  My real hair is gray.  My feet are telling me I really ought to cut out the running crap, like, NOW.

The other day in my classroom the subject of Madonna came up.  God, don’t ask me how.  I’ve never been a fan, but in her heyday she was not to be ignored.  When was she popular, anyway? one student asked.  And another answered, back in the olden days.

The olden days.  Holy hell.  The 80’s are the olden days.  And I was born in the 70’s.  This is tragic.

I can’t imagine saying something about aging that hasn’t been said before.  It kind of grumps me out that I now really get everything everyone has ever said about getting older.  My wrinkles are really just laugh lines.  Every line has a story.  I wish I could go back and do it all over knowing what I know now.  Time flies.  I feel 22 but I look in a mirror and don’t know the old person staring back at me.  My question is:  when did I stop being cool?  I used to be cool.  Wait.  Didn’t I?

I told Luke I used to be cool.  His eyes widened and that cute (almost 11 year-old) smirk appeared.  Okay, mom, he said.  I DID, I countered, I totally was!

Mom,he said, it was probably easier to be cool when you were young.  A lot less people, a lot less “cool” all around. 

And….touche.

I’m going upstairs for a nap.

“I would like to spend my whole life traveling, if I could borrow another life to spend at home.”  – William Hazlitt

For the record, I never professed to know what the hell I’m doing with my life.  My 40 years has been a series of glancing up and noticing open doors, dropping whatever I was currently doing, walking through them, and never looking back.  I know this makes people scratch their heads in wonder, but it seems to be working for me so far.

Our year in Korea (and Jeju Island, New Zealand, Fiji, Thailand and China) is over. I have taught my last class, run my last run and have said my goodbyes.  It’s been delightful.  Confusing.  Enriching.  Exasperating.  Breathtaking.  And now I’m going home.  To a door so familiar to me I can trace its lines in my sleep.  To a backyard I can feel and smell whenever I hear laughter, and there is sunshine.

People ask me all the time if it was worth it.  Like I bought a fancy, glittery comb at the dollar store that I was expecting would change my hair from poofy and thick into perfectly spiraled coils, or…something.  I assure you, my hair is still ridiculously poofy and thick. And I never wanted curly hair to begin with.  I have to comb my hair, right?  Why not do so with a flash of sass?Time is going to pass, and life is going to happen, why not mix it up once in awhile – give yourself a reminder that you are but one of almost 7 billion human beings.  Your experience is valid, but it is no more valid than the beggar on the riverbank in Bangkok, or the bag valet at a resort in Fiji.

I knew all along I wasn’t searching for anything on this journey.  It was Anne Lamott who said expectations are resentments waiting to happen.  And she got it so right.  I came here with an open heart and an open mind, nothing to achieve or conquer.  Because of this, every experience has been – just that – an experience.

So what is the question, exactly?  Was the exchange of life at home for life here worth it?  It being … ?

I regret nothing and I own it.

I do so love a wide-open door.  And a big glittery comb.