Waiting for the “Do you remember whens…”

I was just thinking about the future, you know when I’m old…like my dad. Just kidding Pops, anyone who can get out there for the 35^th year and play two back-to-back games of ultimate in the South Carolina heat with a bunch of college students isn’t old at all. Seriously, I know these things. Anyway, so I was thinking about when I am really old and mostly just sitting around and thinking about my life and all that happened to me. Actually that sounds horrible, let’s rephrase…

So I was thinking about when I am really old and am still kickin’ it like a 20 year old, but actually have the space to contemplate my life. While walking home from work yesterday I imagined myself in old age sitting around a big table on someone’s farm with my sisters, you know friends from waaaaay back. The ones I knew when I didn’t know who I was. The girls I went to drivers ed with and first learned to travel with and saw get married and get pregnant (well, not actually saw get pregnant…that would be embarrassing for all) and watched live their lives from almost beginning to almost end.  Well, we were chillin’ drinking beer like we did when we were in our 20s around our old lady table. Their kid’s kids were wandering around playing with dolls and sword fighting with sticks and all of us were looking at each other like, how the hell did this happen? But it did happen, somehow. We got old and we could talk for days utilizing the phrase “Do you remember when…?” Though, my own “Do you remember whens…” are different in some ways from my sisters’. No better, no worse, just unique to me.

I began thinking about all this because I got a new job. I’ll be teaching something at the private university near where I live. That something could range from English to Computers, from Work Readiness classes to Science classes. Anyone who knows me will laugh at the absurdity of me teaching Science, but you know, I’m a go with the flow sort of girl. I can learn how to do anything, right…right? Yesterday walking home I almost laughed out loud when I thought about the phrase, “Do you remember when I taught Science to University students in a tiny West African country?” Ha, ha, we would all laugh at the insanity of it while sitting around the old lady table. “That was the craziest job you ever had,” someone would say. “I know, I know,” I’d reply, “I was terrified standing in front of those students every day.”

There would, in all reality, be crazier things: “Do you remember when I almost died in a blizzard in Mongolia?” Or, “Do you remember when you moved to that war-torn country and moved into a house by yourself?” And unforgettably beautiful things: “Do you remember when I described to you the scene as I watched the sunrise over Machu Picchu in Peru?” And, “Do you remember when we moved to the most amazing mountain village in Austria and watched fall come and go and winter settle in?” And things that meant so much to our relationships: “Do you remember when we were laying in bed the night before you got married talking about how nervous and excited you were?” Or, “Do you remember when we cooked all those meals for all those friends in the apartment on Laurel Avenue? And do you remember when ya’ll married half of them?”

In trying to make decisions lately I’ve been taking the reverse approach. I think of myself a few years ahead or many years ahead and I imagine looking back over my own shoulder. What do I want to see back there? What “Do you remember whens…” do I want to have as I sit there at the old lady table with sisters who’ve known me since we sat in grammar school together? Maybe I like that my “Do you remember whens…” are so different from my friends, but maybe, just maybe, I don’t. I’m hoping there is still enough time to figure all that out.