Sometimes I wonder at how fast life changes. When you're a teenager everything feels like it's the end of the world and the days seem to last forever. Now very few things rattle me hard enough to knock me all the way down, and time seems to whiz past. Last night around 1am I was thinking about these things. I was thinking how 1am holds such a different meaning for me than it once did.
I can remember being 16 and dreaming of a day that my dad would find it appropriate for me to stay out past ten o'clock at night. I'm pretty sure my curfew was earlier than some 8th graders'. At that point in my life 1am meant freedom. It represented a day somewhere in the future where I would make all of my own decisions and I was sure that for whatever reason, those decisions would involve staying our very very late. Driving home at a quarter to nine I often fantasized about what fun things happened at 1am.
Then fast forward 2 years to the long awaited age of 18 when 1 am took on a new meaning. 1am became a reality of silly antics with college friends, late night trips to walmart, middle of the night breakfasts at the local diner, and of course many a 1am spent cramming for college exams. At that time I was living 1am. I could easily stay up late and spend the next afternoon napping between classes. 1am defined college living, it was a necessity - and I loved every minute of it.
Now to the present day 1am - how things have changed. Last night at 1am I a felt an elbow in my side as distant crys began to break into my deep coma. 1am is now is a time of day where I can barely crack my eyes open enough to stumble down the hallway. The fun footloose version of 1am has now been replaced with drooping eyes, crying babies, requests for drinks of water, sometimes grouchy exchanges of words, and of course the sorry excuse for entertainment on TV. Naps that use to last for hours have now been replaced with 5 minute nod offs and now that I have 2 kids even the word nap seems to have become elusive.1am is now a blur, a time that I fumble through trying to find my way back to sleep until that beautiful sun rises in the sky proclaiming the arrival of morning.
I think that this experience in life has turned out to be what some would call a classic case of be careful what you wish for.
Clever writing. I've been thinking of something else since we here about Rep. Giffords and her amazing recovery nearly every day. What I think of is the miraculous recovery of my niece from head trauma caused in an auto accident. However, the same "steps to recovery", such as opening the eyes, moving fingers, etc. are all the same. So I'm more emotionally involved with Rep. Giffords and her family now than I would have been three years ago. It's an amazing life and we need to enjoy the different phases....even the terrible twos.
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