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I Just Realized: I Am Old; Like Old Old

By Unknown
I'm old.

I turned 39 in April, so I guess it shouldn't be that much of a surprise.

And a million things could have triggered it.  Like the aches that linger a bit longer than they used too or the pains that don't quite subside.  The mornings that are harder to face than before.  There was the time my eye doctor told me my completely harmless eye condition came as the result of age.  But nope, none of that did it.  

A little baby did.

When I started hanging around with my wife's family we were the youngest of the group.  While I'm the oldest sibling in my family, my wife is the youngest of hers.  She had a couple nephews and a niece, but they were just entering their teen years.  So we were the ones finding  first jobs, and then second jobs, and exploring the world.  We were the ones living in new places and buying homes and then having kids.  And we didn't just have kids, we had triplets.  We were always the young up-and-comers.

But on Mother's Day, as my wife and I held our nephews month old baby and took turns watching as our kids held her, it dawned on me that my kids were now holding kids.  We are no longer the youngest of the bunch.

Its the nephew and nieces starting out in their careers, moving out of their parents homes, having kids, and generally establishing themselves and their places in the world.

Those nephews and niece are now in the same spot we were when I met my wife.  And we have moved on to the adults.  But that can't be right, I can't be an adult, can I?

And then I look around me.  I'm solidly in my career, as is my wife.  We own the small sliver of the home the bank doesn't have first dibs on.  We have triplets who are not only walking and talking, but graduating from preschool.  And holding babies!  Actual babies.  I remember when they couldn't hold anything.

Our threesome are more little children now than they are babies.  As we won't be having another one, this is it for us.  Our babes are, well, no longer babes.

And even as they pass from babes to honest to god kids, they are being passed as well, with other kids, other generations.  The circle of life.

And damn I'm old.
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