I wonder if I'll ever stop being surprised: Surprised that, no, I cannot just keep living my life the same way, no matter how productive I am, if no one is paying me. That, yes, the boy from when I was seven and the boy from when I was twenty-seven and my sorority great-grand little sister (or something) all got married in the same weekend. That the people I was surprised to see get facebook-divorced are engaged again. Surprised that my friends were trying to talk us into what was not necessarily a scheme but was, undoubtedly, a pyramid. That I can stay calm enough to actually be helpful when my baby brother calls from the Caribbean to tell me he is throwing up blood and on the way to the hospital (and that my credit limit might have actually been helpful, if it had come to that). Surprised to find out in a single day that two of my friends-- real friends, college friends-- are having babies soon (one on purpose, and both very excited).
I wonder when I'll stop being surprised to be a grownup.
We took off. We escaped to the beach with a swimsuit under my clothes and a tent and a cooler and sunscreen and all the things to make s'mores. We were going to camp, though it wouldn't really have been roughing it to sleep in the back yard of a house we had all to ourselves and I'm not sure it counts as camping when you've got a kitchen and two bathrooms and a washer and dryer and a television and a piano. But I got a cold, and we slept inside and that was fine, too. It was good to get away for a few days.
~b
