Virginia Wind - From Where I Sit January 2004

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Email Michelle at clooliss@hotmail.com.

Backseat - From Where I Sit

January 2004

Expiration Date TBD

Ah the start of a new year - It's that cliché time when we all look over what we did and didn't accomplish over the last year and promise with a straight face that whatever we failed at last year, we will magically be able to accomplish this year. For example, this year I will stop procrastinating. Never mind that I am writing this article for January on January 1 st . In my book New Year's Day is a freebie day - a day to have that last buttery croissant for breakfast before abandoning all carbs for the rest of my life and a day where I can sleep in one last time before getting up an extra hour early every morning to hit the treadmill. That is what January 2 nd is about. Otherwise, January 1st wouldn't really be a "holiday" would it?

With my lofty goals firmly in my head (starting tomorrow), I can now safely look back on what I did accomplish. Getting married to Kent would be what I consider a "biggie". Riding the Harley in my wedding dress and climbing up to a rocky mountain top to say our vows in front of whoever happened to be hiking by had to be one of the highlights of the year. However, being a blushing bride at 40 never really fit into my life plans. In fact, when I was a teenager, I can remember when somebody mentioned the year 2000, I boldly and knowingly exclaimed to everyone in earshot "I will be 36 by then. At that point, I will have done all I wanted to do and lived all my life worth living so who cares if the world ends?" Our class motto was "We are foxy. We are fun. We're the class of 81." and I planned to live like that forever. Y2K and age 36 were way beyond forever as far as I was concerned.

Oh, to be as wise and invincible as I was then. Wait, I have a teenage son who reminds me daily that he and his buds have all the answers. Answers that I believe are hidden in all those confusing video games and indiscernible music lyrics that are designed to just throw us old fogies off while they plan and plot a take-over. Maybe I am just getting paranoid in my old age, but don't you think it's strange that they can sit in front of a screen pushing what appears to the layman parent to be random buttons for hours on end, yet they can't seem to muster enough concentration to sit at a dinner table for more than 5 minutes after all the food is gone? Or that they can call everyone "Dude" in a room full of "Dudes" and the only the correctly intended "Dude" will answer? I am not a conspiracy theorist, but maybe this deserves a bit of a closer look.

Maybe it's all a big distraction to keep us from aspiring to bigger and better. After all, I am well past my shelf-life of 36. Maybe I should stop competing with the younger generation in trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I had almost convinced myself that this is "as good as it gets" when I received a sign:

It was a very cold morning. I was making my usual trek from the metro station to my office in downtown DC. My mind was firmly focused on the day that lay ahead and quite frankly, I was already bored thinking about it. I had long ago learned to ignore the persistent call of the resident bums asking for money, the car horns, and the general congestion of all the people walking that same path to work. It all became mere background noise.

That is, until I heard a familiar rumble that grew louder as a motorcycle cop with the empty side car roared past. It didn't appear that he had any where to go but it also didn't seem like it mattered to him one bit as he revved the engine a bit louder. A giant pang of jealousy hit me as I thought to myself "How cool it must be to be able to ride around all day and get paid for it..." My wistful thinking was cut-short by a little old lady walking next to me on the street who said "If I made that much noise, I would get a ticket. You know he is just having fun and showing off." Then she shook her head as she walked past and said "Oh well, better him than me."

I never let on that I couldn't have disagreed more. I just smiled as I entered the door to my building remembering an "older" blushing bride riding down Skyline drive and off into the sunset to begin a new life. As the rumble still lingered in my head I thought "Finished living at 36 - my foot! My expiration date is still TBD. 2004 - Bring it on, Dude!"

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