birthdays
My obsession with age didn't come with the onset of a few grey hairs or some 30ish sun spots that magically appeared last summer when I was eight months pregnant. In fact, the preoccupation of calculating my birthday so that I could maintain my age of let’s say for today, 31, has really been in the making ever since the eve of my 10-year-old birthday. At the time , my mom's current boyfriend gave what he thought was probably some friendly advice or more like it, he was probably trying to impress my mother that he could converse with her youngest daughter by saying, "Tomorrow you’ll never be a single digit woman again!”
Who was he to shatter my single digit world? I stared blankly at him for just enough time to be dramatic, then jumped up, ran to my room and slammed the door, just like the way my older sister would do. I did a swan dive on my bed and cried. I was 9 years old for one more day and there began my ageless journey!
A few years passed, and now I was in Mrs. Long's 8th grade pre -Algebra advanced math class. I attribute my spiral downfall to a potential math future when Lauri Powers announced or rather scrame to the class, Jackie's got a gray hair! She pulled ithe wirey white hair out of my scalp faster than I could say what the square root of 16 was. Laughing and teasing errupted as only adolescent kids could do. A couple weeks passed and again Lauri dfound it necessary to focus on my head instead of the chalf algebric formulas on the board when she did it again. You've got two grandma hairs today. Pluck pluck. "Ouch ,quit it." I whispered back to her not to bring attention her newest discovery. Knowing Lauri, she 'd probaly share with the class that I had just begun my period. My class assigned math buddy on the other side of me, Todd Yarter, heard Lauri and began to call me grandma
3 comments:
J - I'm impressed that you actually did some wonderfully entertaining writing instead of just a lame comment - good for you. Just a comment to know you've been appreciated today.
The beginning of one of the aspects of you that is truly "Jackie"... How old are you anyway?
Jackie you are a riot, I'm so glad you're at AI! I'm looking forward to it.
BTW (can we use txt tlk in AI?) "scrame" is a fantastic word--I don't think I'll ever use "screamed" again.
I thought my wife was crazy when she told me that she cried when she turned 16 because she thought she was getting old. Now I'm starting to think that maybe she was just a bit slow to come to the realization of the inevitable passage of time. (I didn't think I was getting old until I turned 30, so what does that say about me?)
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