Since having Ragsy, there are things that have come out of my mouth that have made me sound a) exactly like my mother and b) completely insane. I like to keep a record of the latter because, well, most women I know spent half their lives in mortal terror of turning into their mothers and I'm no different. So, earlier this week, it felt completely normal to hand my child a toothbrush and advise, "Okay - this is not for your butt. Teeth only." Or to turn in the shower, look down and sigh, saying, "Excuse me, Captain Hook, but right now is not the best time for a sword fight. If you'll let me finish showering, we can have a 'fine, slashing duel' once I've put my clothes on."
It's amazing how your perspective changes as you get older. And it's not even just parenting. A lot of it's health, too. I was running on the treadmill last night (I can finally - finally! - run for thirty minutes without stopping again; it's been almost three years), getting a little maudlin while cooling down because I was listening to the song 100 Years, which was on the radio the day I found out I was pregnant. And I was surprised to find myself thinking, "I'd better run tomorrow, too. I need to get really healthy in case we decide to have another child."
This is a complete turn-about from even a couple of years ago, when vanity and pride would have seen me doing a half-assed job on the treadmill. Now it's all about health, and that carrot makes me work harder than I have in years - I have even more drive than I did when I was running marathons. When the heck did that happen? When I was younger, even though I've always battled high cholesterol (even running marathons), it never occurred to me to worry about my health. But now that I'm older, I work out and eat healthier because I want to stay around as long as possible and, if we do decide to have another kid, give it the best home it can have for 9 months and both my children the most energetic mom possible.
Does this mean I'm getting older? Wiser? Nah, I still feel 20 sometimes. And virtually all the time I feel like the village idiot. In fact, I'm pretty sure I became the village idiot during grad school. I knew everything when I graduated until I went back to school and realized that everything - history, mathematics, scientific disciplines (including archaeology, which is a mish-mash of math, science, anthro and history) - is all completely interconnected. It's a lot like Medicare and Social Security. You can't understand one without understanding the other and you have to know everything about both and that takes years, if you ever truly master it at all. So, yeah - I'm actually dumber than when I graduated college. Who knew?
This long, rambling, silly and introspective post brought to you by the letter M for maudlin and the number 13, because I like that number.
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