Old Age

I turned a quarter of a century old today. Unbelievable. Or maybe not so much. It seems I've been alive for quite a long time (although, obviously, I don't have much to compare it to), and plenty has happened in the last 25 years. It's just that not so very long ago, I would've told you that people in their mid-twenties were mature, serious, grown up, boring. Old.

I was playing violin this morning, and for the first time in my life realized that I couldn't see the lines on the staff to read some of the notes. Failing eyesight? You've got to be kidding me.

My bedtime is 9:45 on school nights. My grandparents stay up later than that. Granted, I rarely make it on time. It's a testament to the imbalance of my work and social lives that on a normal week, the only nights I'm in bed by bedtime are Friday and Saturday. Pathetic, ¿no?

There's not much I can do about declining vision or that fact that I actually need my eight hours of sleep, I suppose, but I've certainly been putting forth my best efforts to guard against becoming too serious and boring. After spending the better part of this past Friday night studying for more teacher licensure tests and completing an online training course in school emergency response, I was all too aware of how easy it could be to fall into a dangerously dull adult lifestyle of overwork and underplay. Unacceptable, I say.

So I ventured outside in my slippers through the snow and into the back alley, where the plastic sliding board from our ex-treehouse had been laid to rest in the dumpster. I rescued it. Then, with the amused but skeptical help of my dear and trusty friend Kate, I proceeded to attach it to my bed so I could slide to the floor each morning. Wouldn't you just be itching for the alarm clock to go off if you knew you'd get to slide out of bed?

She told me that maybe once I turned 25, I'd outgrow this severe silliness. I'm watching the clock, and that slide's still in my bedroom. I think I win. But if I end up in the hospital tomorrow morning with a broken hip...well, you'll know what happened.