Maturity

It has been one of those days when I notice myself morphing by degrees into my mother. I've always drawn remarks on how closely I resemble her, but never thought so myself until last summer when I received a speeding ticket from the photo cop in the mail. The Portland Police Bureau kindly includes the photo with the ticket so that you can contest the charge if you weren't the person driving the car that day. Well, it would have been easy to contest. It was obviously my mother driving my car . . . with my kids . . . wearing my clothes . . . and my sunglasses. Unbeknownst to me, she must have flown into town for the day and was taking the kiddos to swim lessons as a favor.

It isn't actually so bad to turn into my mother (she's a pretty cool lady), but the increasing cognizance of my own age vexes me a little. I hear myself say things at the grocery like, "Alice? Do you know what my favorite sound in the whole world is? The sound of not whining." And I remember myself at five years old, completely irritated that my mother was not listening to me explain (with nice long syllables so she'd get the point) exactly why we should buy that box of Luckyyyyyyyy Chaaaaaaarms.

I hear myself talking about mortgages, calories, politics, interest rates and coupons.

I hear myself at my soccer game, telling the 19-year old super star on the other team that this is the beginner league, to be careful . . . she's injuring our inexperienced players. My teammates report that right after she apologized to my face, she turned her back, pulled a face and mouthed my words with an exaggerated sneer. To her I sound like Charlie Brown's school teacher, "Wah wah, wah wah wah wah."

Sigh. I guess it is time for me to go shopping for a pair of these.