And so it goes

If there’s one thing about life that’s totally unfair, it’s the aging process.

Not because you get wrinkles and your joints stiffen. But because your parents get wrinkles and their joints stiffen.

By the time we’re old enough to truly appreciate our parents, to party and gallivant with them, they’re usually too old for that behavior.

If my parents were even in their forties right now while I’m in my twenties, I can only imagine how things would be different. They’d stay up later. Their opinions would be a smidgen closer to mine. We’d have fewer conversations about vitamins and vision problems and more conversations about, I don’t know, vodka and Viagra (okay, so that’s for old people, but it’s a V word).

We’d dance more. Their younger, sharper brains would get more of my jokes. They’d complain less about the salt content or temperature of their food because they’d be too busy just having fun.

But alas, this isn’t the way the world works.

So as I age, I watch them age twice as quickly.

And when I have children, they won’t have the same perception of these people we share in common. Of their spry young grandparents throwing cocktail parties, sharing dirty jokes, and kissing them goodnight. They’ll just know these wrinkly old people who get grumpy when the sun sets. Who don’t understand the music kids listen to. And who just show up around the holidays.

And when my children finally get it, finally understand that these old people are my parents, that they raised me every day of my young life, it’ll be too late.

And by that time, I’ll be older and my kids will start to see me differently too--as they age and I start to age twice as quickly.