Mortality Moments

I made it all through the weekend and through a really tough day today, and here I sit blubbering after a father-centered How I Met Your Mother episode, even though it's a story that doesn't resemble mine in the least. I just ate almost an entire package of Trader Joe's Almond Clusters, and some lovely wine, and I'm totally exhausted.
It's just... my parents got so old, so fast! How did I miss that? I mean, I knew they were getting older, I've seen the difference over the years, but it still somehow seems so surprising.
I used to think about people getting old, and wonder- the very last time they skied, or did a cartwheel, or ran, or skipped, or played catch... did they know it was their last time? Would that make a difference? A major reason that I got the surgery two years ago now was so that I could run again before I die. That's so grim, I know! But I'm not ready to do things for the last time. Already I'm facing the mortality of my eyes- all my life I thought it would be so cool to have glasses, and now I do, and I can never again not need glasses. Same thing- I totally knew it was happening, but now that it's happened, and can't un-happen, it seems so shocking and sudden.
Today at work we met as a staff to plan for our pastor's absence, as he is having bypass surgery. We all prayed along as our Parochial Vicar anointed him. Outside, snow fell and interrupted our new spring, and I felt deflated, and adrift. I know I'm not the first or last to face mortality- mine or my own. I'm not leaning to the optimistic, nor the pessimistic side... both seem tempting, but both seem, well, too easy.
We read this Sunday's Gospel, where the woman at the well said “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” I thought, yes, that is what I want- I want to know how it all turns out. Also, I want to stop the clock.

I'm younger than that now

Holy Shit!* This aging thing is quite a trip.
I met up with some of my girlfriends the other day- we strolled down memory lane and realized with a shock that we've been friends for around 20 years. How on earth did that happen?
Then, when one of my friends was talking about a woman we all know, relaying her current situation and referring back to her backstory from 20 years ago, it hit me like a bat to the head: if our lives were books, (chick lit, obviously) we'd be at the resolution of a story arc. We know now, at around 40 years old, how the stories that began in our twenties, turned out.
We have perspective, wisdom, experience- we see consequences behind every action. We have sympathy and empathy that only comes from being in and out of troubling situations ourselved over the years.
We didn't have this back then, back when we started our stories together. It was all a laboratory, a writers' workshop, where we all laid down elements to an epic story- an autobiography.
A young woman, a dear friend of mine just starting in youth ministry gives me a hard time sometimes. She says "I can just hear you saying 'oh, you're so young, you'll see'" And she's right, things do look different from here, because while I'm watching her story unfold, I'm watching mine in reruns.
I'm grateful for whatever wisdom I've gained over the years, grateful for the teaching moments, the mistakes, the near misses, the lucky breaks. I'm grateful for old friends who can remember the beginnings with me. It's better to be 41 than to be 21.

* sorry about the cussing.