I never believed the world was ending in when the calendar rolled from 1999 to 2000. I joked about it at the time, saying my family could survive on the goldfish crackers scattered in my car and the murky water standing in the plastic sandbox in our back yard. I made no other preparations.
I had no fear. The world would go on . . . how could it not? I had little kids in my house and the world does not stop when there are snacks to prepare and bubbles in the bathwater and Nintendo video games to play.
I was thirty-five years old.
Almost twenty years later, I look around, shocked that everyone is carrying on as if the world isn’t ending. I am fifty-three years old. Time is fleeting. (That’s putting it mildly.) Even though summer just ended a minute ago, this Friday I will put up Christmas decorations.
Then it will be summer again. My daughter will turn 17-years old. My husband will turn 60. I’ll be 85 before you know it and why is everything just whizzing by so fast?
I mean, okay. Deep breath.
Right now, my daughter is 16. None of my adult kids have actually moved out of the house. I can still run up and down the stairs. I’m gainfully employed. My husband is beloved by all (and actually only 57). I am reading Harry Potter at long last. Our Thanksgiving turkey is in the fridge and I will have both Thursday and Friday off.
I saw the sunset tonight. Let’s just all calm down.
(But honestly. Doesn’t it bother anyone but me that our lives are finite? That one day we’ll be gone with nothing to show for our lives but a closet full of clothes that our next-of-kin will box up and donate to a thrift store?)
The sky is falling.
Or maybe that was just an acorn hitting my head.
Actual Unretouched Photo 
I now think in terms of ‘lasts’ or possible ‘lasts,.Are we driving our last car? We recently bought a new washer and thought that it is quite likely the last. But we are into our 70s, and you’re just a kid. 🙂
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I remember my mom telling me how depressing it was to shop with her mother. “This will probably be my last winter coat.” Then my mom started doing it “This may be the last time we travel to Wisconsin together.” We just bought a different car, and I heard myself tell my daughter, “This will probably be our last car”. Okay, hopefully we both live beyond sixty, but one just never knows!
Oh, and the ONLY thing I stock-piled for Y2K? Peanut M&M’s! (This may or may not have something to do with my comment above.)
You are young and still have such a lot of living to do! But I completely understand what you are saying…
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The older you get, the faster the seasons flash by. I’m in my mid 70s and on any given day I can wake up and think it’s the 90s. Time is a strange thing
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