The ghosts of "me" past

We were driving home yesterday when a strange thing happened.

We stopped at the light on the corner of University and University. We were holding hands, as usual, and I looked up at the Riviera apartments across the street.

Then suddenly I saw myself five years ago, passing this very light, driving to see a friend at those apartments, not knowing that when I met her boyfriend a few moments later I would be meeting my future husband.  Not knowing that, five years later, we would be driving home to our cozy little cottage from a Friday night date to Jason’s deli, stopped at that same light, holding hands and laughing at each other’s jokes.

Time is an interesting thing, is it not? I wonder what I’ll be remembering five years from today. I wonder what, in five years, will make me marvel yet again at how perfectly the little pieces of life put themselves together.

On maturity

Being a grown-up is neat.

For example, if I want to have butterscotch pudding from the fridge before dinnertime, I can just go ahead and have it!  And if I don’t especially feel like putting my dirty socks in the laundry bin, I can just fling them any which way without a single repercussion.

Sometimes the whole grown-up thing really amazes me too.  Like the fact that (most weeks) we remember – out of all the grown-up things there are to remember –to take the garbage out to the road the night before garbage day.  I always give Kendon a high-five when we take the garbage out to the road.  It’s an activity that reminds me that I really am 25.

There are times, though, when I feel the opposite of 25. Like last night, when I really just needed to have a good cry, and my grown-up husband held me and wiped my eyes and told me everything was going to be OK.  It’s nice having another grown-up in the house for times like that.  And sometimes the husband needs to be a kid for a little while too, and then I get to take my turn being the Bagley house grown-up.

Being a grown-up is neat. But having someone to take care of you when you feel 10 years old is even neater.

Happy new new year!

Good morning, world.


I just woke up and discovered it’s the last day of January.

Turns out my mind has been asleep during the very time of year that everyone else’s is wide awake.  At this point in the year, 2012 is still wearing a preposterously loud and colorful party hat with fake fruit and a real tropical bird on top. He’s walking around, so to speak, giving everyone high-fives for keeping their resolutions so fantastically. And everyone’s laughing right along with that good-humored 2012, because before the ink has dried on their 2012 goal lists, they really have lost ten pounds, or won a Pulitzer, or hiked the Alps by now.

For some reason, 2012 didn’t give me a high five like everyone else. It’s like he just strolled on by me, whistling distractedly, straightening his party hat to avoid looking at me.  Maybe it’s because I slept through the fireworks on his birthday? And I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and played another round of Mahjong on my dumb smart phone, because playing Mahjong on your dumb smart phone is about all you can do while you’re waiting for your mind to wake up.

But never fear, world, for my mind has yawned and stretched and at last left its hibernation cave!  And my mind has asked me to hereby proclaim this day as second New Year’s.  We start fresh right now, my mind and I, on January 31, and I’m going to celebrate by making up a song and dreaming up a novel and deleting Mahjong from my smart phone and, of course, by writing in this lonely blog for the first time in over a month.

Happy new new year, world!

Sincerely, me and my mind