age

Last week someone asked me again if I was spending time with my granddaughter while I was running errands with E.  If E wasn't sitting right behind me, I might have said, "Yes" -- just to shorten the inevitable heartbreak that happens when I need to soothe the offender for his or her shame in assuming my wrinkles and grey hair mean that I could only be a grandparent to a 6-year-old.

Last night I wanted to read my new Lucky Peach magazine. (Cynthia, you should look for this because it may give you hope after the murder of Gourmet.)  But I couldn't track the content because I was so tired (big Saturday at the Market), and I said some not nice words and slammed the magazine down and yanked off the light.

This morning I thought about how wonderful it is to want to read something after many months, and why can't I?  What's wrong with me?  Do I need glasses or what? 

Then I remembered that I was prescribed reading glasses before Thanksgiving last year.  I got them and lost them.  Duh.  Then I got busy re-imagining my business, applying to the Market, preparing for the Market, and then producing for and doing the Market...  this is the first time since December when I had free mind space for reading something that really interested me, and I forgot I needed glasses to do it.

Age, like I said. 

Comments

[thesandwichlife]

Yup....age! I'll try Lucky Peach---thanks!

[Chris Burdett]

One day last year when I went in to Jessica's preschool classroom to pick her up, one of her four-year-old classmates saw me and called out, "Jessica! Your grampa's here!" I'm sure I turned red, and was doing my best to avoid the gaze of Jessica's teachers or the two or three other parents in the room at the time. I got her out as quickly as I could and spent the rest of the day in a funk.

One day the following week when I arrived, one of the girls saw me and called out, "Jessica! Your mommy's here!" (Remember, I have short hair and a beard.)

I realized then that to a four-year-old, all grownups are pretty much the same.

Of course, when a grownup assumes I'm the grandfather rather than the father, it hurts like hell.

[growingcurious]

Chris, in my funk, I had forgotten that I know quite a few people in the same boat, and you are one of them.

Forgive me for offering a writers group critique, but that may be the best comment on a blog post ever. It had a story, tension, character development, emotion, mystery, and honesty.

I was gripped while reading it.

I love that I know you, Chris, and I love imagining you and Anna coming over for dinner with your kids if we lived nearer.

[Stephanie]

From the opposite end... one day when I was picking Keelan up from school, one of the other kids asked, 'Are you Keelan's babysitter??' In a manner of speaking, yes, but I just said, 'Uh, no, I'm his mom'. One of the dads was standing next to me and, with raised eyebrow, he said, 'Now how to you feel about *that*?' All I could say was, 'Well... I'm not sure, actually.'

Then recently, and now I can't remember for the life of me where I was, someone told me that I didn't look old enough to be married! I definitely hadn't had that one before!