it doesn’t take a terribly long time to realize you’re growing up. nor does it happen in the wink of an eye. there is no magical, golden moment. the world doesn’t suddenly alight with a strange aura wherein the angels of heaven come singing with one voice about how, today, the decree has been passed down that you are an adult. it’s official.

it happens in strange, minuscule and barely noticeable moments spread over time.

one day you’re cruising the parking lot in today’s hottest fashion with the radio blaring today’s hottest music looking for the hottest guy in high school so that you may giggle and fawn over him appropriately and the next you’re cruising the parking lot in sweatpants with the radio set to NPR looking for the spot nearest the door thereby minimizing the distance you have to trudge back to your car with two kids and a shopping cart full of goldfish cheese crackers. you don’t even know what today’s hottest fashion looks like anymore. today’s hottest music? forget it. you wouldn’t even understand it even if you did know what it sounded like.

one day you’re standing in line at the mall and you notice the clerk flirting with the guy in front of you. this naturally requires you to check out the guy she’s checking out. then you discover to your horror that the “guy” is actually only a sixteen or seventeen year old “kid” and you feel a little queasy. you jerk your head back to the cashier for a better look. you know, so you can better identify her when the police ask for a description of the dirty old woman who works at the mall and preys on young teenage boys. that’s when you realize she’s also only sixteen or seventeen and she’s flirting her pretty little blonde extensions off. so they’re perfect for one another.

all of this does nothing for your self esteem. it only gets you thinking about her technique. which in turn starts you thinking about flirting with a sixteen year old boy. which in turn sends shivers down your spine and makes you feel like you need to shower. because — and this is the problem, you see — you are now an adult and thusly, you don’t belong anywhere near that world. you can’t compete with her. you may know all the smoothest things to say. all the sexiest ways to bat your eyes and toss your hair. you may have that come hither look down to a science. but you’re 33 and she’s 16. you can’t compete. all you can do is stare at the two of them and remember when.

she’s school dances and sleepovers. you’re mortgage payments and overtime. she’s cutesy pajamas and high heels. you’re flannel p.j.s and ratty tennis shoes. her idea of a good time ends with falling in bed at 3 in the morning. yours is at 11 after monopoly and microwave popcorn. microwave popcorn. with butter. that’s the height of rebellion for you now.

you are a grown up.

it sucks to have that realization hit you square between the eyes. especially when you’re least expecting it. it’s no fun to go to the mall for a routine hit and run and instead have the weight of that reality come squarely home to sit on your shoulders all because brittany had to bat her eyelashes at kid fantastic right in front of you, thereby illustrating a time and place you are no longer and you will never be again. that’s all past now. and while it’s true that there are a great many things about being a grown up to be grateful for — independence, lack of peer pressure, no crazy teenage hormonal shit to mess your head up — there’s still that underlying regret for things that will never be again. i’ll never go to another school dance. i’ll never go to the mall to just “hang out” with my friends. i’ll never be able to have another sleepover at a girlfriend’s house where we stay up all night listening to music and talking about the boy in school we think is the cutest. that’s all in the past and you know what “they” say: you can’t go back again.

i suppose the reason it struck me so hard was because i wasn’t expecting it. not so soon. kid fantastic i recognized right away as one of them. i realized he was a teenager because he was a boy and just at first glance i could recognize him as a “kid”. not so for ms. brittany. or whatever her name was. she was a female and therefore i associated myself with her both as a person and a woman. at first glance i saw her only as one of my own. it took her flirting with the kid and a second look before i realized i was many steps removed from her world. that was the impetus for me to be faced head on with the cold, hard gospel of a lifetime done and gone now.

sure, i’ve got plenty left. i’m far from the grave. but there are whole fragments of my life that are done and gone and will never be lived again. i won’t be one of those women in hip hugger jeans and a midriff tee shirt who refuses to let it go. i won’t wear my hair sixteen feet higher or my lipstick twelve shades redder in an attempt to hold on. what’s gone is gone and i’m letting it go. gracefully, i hope. on to the next thing. i may not be mini skirts and high school proms anymore. but i’m elementary school halloween carnivals and christmas mornings with the boys. i’m cookie baker extraordinaire and owie kisser fantastique. there’s tradeoffs. and they’re not all bad.

it’s just the dawning of the light that throws you a little.