When did I get old?

I have to admit that I have never really thought I would get old. No, I take that back. Not that I wouldn't get old, just that I wouldn't grow up. Sometimes I look around and I can't really believe that I'm a college graduate, with a husband and a son, and a job that I've been at for 4 years. I swear I still feel like a kid sometimes. I can't believe how much time has passed, and there are days when life feels very surreal. Now don't get me wrong, I love everything about my life. I'm just saying that every once in a while, I really stop and look around, and forget how I ended up here. Just how much time has passed really catches me off guard.

I still feel like it was a just a couple of years ago that I was in college, drinking every weekend, staying out late, and having a really good time. Unfortunately, that was when I was 20, 21, 22, etc. On paper, 26 (and 11/12ths) doesn't seem all that far from 20, 21, 22...but believe me, it is!

When I met my husband, he introduced me to some classic country, in particular Hank Williams Jr. Now I know that he was MUCH older than 26 (and 11/12ths) when he sang about all his rowdy friends settling down, but at the time, I couldn't really understand the line he said about "the hangovers hurt more than they use to". What does that mean? How could a hangover hurt more than it already does? Today, I found the answer to that question. And boy, was Hank right!

I very rarely "go out" anymore. (To "go out" is the nice way of saying "I'm getting drunk and singing loudly and dancing erratically and taking terrible pictures with my purse camera and scream when I see someone I haven't seen in a while and generally just have a good time.") But, every once in a great while, there is some small town event that calls for a whoopin' and hollerin' time. This such event was the local college homecoming. Unfortunately, when I went home at midnight, I noticed that I was not up to the standards of the college age party-goers...who were all still going strong. I was already beginning to realize what would be in store for me come dawn's early light. I believe the first words out of my mouth when I woke up was "I'm too old for this [insert expletive here]." That's when I realized what Hank had been saying, and it had finally hit home. Which made me think of another country favorite-Garth Brooks said it best: "I'm much to young to feel this damn old..."

Random memories

Do you ever randomly recall something from your childhood and wonder why the hell you are hanging on to that thought? I do it all the time. In fact, my husband says I remember way too much about growing up and that if I'd clear my head of all that unnecessary stuff, I might regain some of my short term memory. No matter what I do though, I always just randomly think of something and then it starts triggering all kinds of crazy memories.

Today, my nephew was watching a show on Nickelodeon called Brain Surge. He was explaining it to me and got really excited when the first two eliminated kids had to take a ride down the "Brain Drain" which, it turns out, is a slide filled with some sort of whipped cream/shaving cream looking substance. The foam also shoots down from the top of the slide, so that the kids are completely covered in it by the time they reach the end. My nephew was, of course, cheering the entire time, which I'm sure any 6 year old would do. *Side note-I just had one of those random childhood thoughts. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was there an episode of Clarissa Explains It All in which Clarissa and her annoying brother Ferguson were on a game show together, and upon losing, had to take a ride down the "Brain Drain"? The idea seems eerily familiar, but since that show was also on Nickelodeon, I guess it's not so far fetched that an idea from our generation would be recycled into an idea for the current generation. Anyway...where was I?

Oh yeah, so I was watching this show and the kids getting all gunked up and it made me remember a show that was the absolute most awesome game show that I ever had the pleasure of turning my mind to mush with. Double Dare. Or better yet, Family Double Dare. Or how about the one with D.J. Tanner? I always thought the wacky dares they had to do were so wild and crazy, and I wished with every fiber of my being that I could somehow wake up in Orlando and be on a team for Double Dare. Of course, I wasn't taking into account my knack for absolutely sucking in anything remotely close to sports or sport like activity. Obviously, many of the dares involved such activities, as it was highly likely that the matronly mother on FDD would go slipping and sliding through the green slime and end up in a position she most likely would not have found very flattering for national television. This made for excellent ratings among children, I am sure. So for this reason, there was one challenge I wanted to do so very badly: The final double dare challenge with the giant gumball machine. You remember...didn't it look so fun??? This seemed a good fit for me, as it clearly took very little skill and a whole lot of luck to find the flag in that ball pit.

My entire childhood I think I truly believed that some day, I would get my chance to jump into the giant pit of plastic colored balls, grab the orange flag, and slide down through the dispenser, winning the grand prize for my team. It's only now at 26 (almost 27...eek!) that I realized that I'll never get the chance. Of course, with my luck, they would resurrect this show, my family would somehow be chosen to participate, and the only challenge I would get to do is to pick the giant nose.