Where Did The Time Go?

Middle daughter, Cindy, turned 49 years old yesterday and I'm just now starting to realize that my little girls are piling on the years. Kim, the oldest, turned 50 last May and I had this niggling feeling that this would be a new era for all of us. My baby, Shelley, will be 45 in April but that still seems young to me.

So many years have passed since they were babies and it seems like several lifetimes ago. I was a different person then, still filled with naivete (is that really spelled right???) and believing old age was a million years away. It wasn't but it took an awfully long time to get here.

When I look back on all the events I can remember about my life I wonder how I could have fit them all in. So many momentous events. So many empty ones, too. I was mainly a stay-at-home Mom so my memories are more about the family and not about some business I spent my allotted hours in. In a way, that's a good thing.

I remember wishing my girls would hurry and grow up so they could do for themselves. I wasted a lot of precious time making those foolish wishes because their sweet childhood passed all too soon. I didn't make that mistake with my grandchildren and I tried to instill my newfound knowledge in my girls. I don't think they made the mistakes I did but they probably made their own. None of us are perfect or we'd be boring as hell, right?

My wishes for them now are that they enjoy each year they're allowed. There's no going back and it's a waste of time to look too far into the future so why not enjoy today?

Still...my babies are 44, 49, and 50. Where did the time go?