She Yawned, She Cried, She Grew Up?

I'm tired.

Tired in all ways that a girl can be tired: body tired, brain tired, heart tired.

After the non-stop-woo-hoo-aren't-we-fun-and-young of the weekend (which was quite possibly the longest ever), I am feeling old. Old because my ability to bounce back is not what it used to be -- which means that I can't lounge in bed until noon and order pizza and fries and extra-large diet cokes and re-hash the night with my homies. Then nap and shower and resume.

I am old because this Independence Day, the Three Short Drunk People were truly the independent ones. I did not need to worry about them drowning so much; I sent the 7 year old out solo in a kayak from the mainland to a nearby island and she made it without one freak out (by me); I could let them roam the island solo (and pee in the woods without help); they could manage the buffet all by themselves. And God love those small dudes, they made their own breakfast at least once over the weekend.

I am old because there have been too many funerals for my friend's parents lately. They seem to be coming like weddings used to come: every couple of months there's another call with more news and more details and more times and places to gather.

Until recently, the last funeral I attended was my grandmother's when I was 22. I was nervous because it was in a big Catholic church, and my father was an atheist who broke from his parents and 8 Irish siblings because he was a rebel and he read philosophy, and also because I really didn't know too many of the aunts and uncles gathered or really the grandmother who had died and I was pretty sure, going in, that I had no idea what to say. Which was true.

When Aunt Number 5, thanked me for coming from so far (which I hadn't really; she probably had me confused with someone else), I said, "Oh, it's my pleasurrrrre."

Which I knew right away was probably foot-in-the-mouth kinda stuff.

When my mother's mother died a couple years later, there was only a memorial service: no wake, no open casket, no praying. My brother in law sang "Morning Has Broken", funny stories were told, my oldest sister who delivered the only official eulogy seemed like a grown-up to me for the first time. Besides that, all I can remember is crying for about a month.

When my grandfather died of a broken heart a year or so after that, I was holding my 2 week old first-born in my arms in his living room as he breathed one last breath and left. My mother and her brothers were off to the liquor store for the dinner that night -- The Stud in hot pursuit, speeding through country roads trying to catch up to them. Unsuccesfully. So it was just me, B, and my middle sister's husband and my middle sister there; she holding his hand, speaking so calmly and so poetically and sending him off in nothing but love. That's when I knew she was a grown up.

A couple more kids later, mortgage payments out the wazoo, a career started and sold, first gray hairs, and the freakin' PTO, and I am still not sure that I feel like a grown-up. Sometimes, when B talks about third grade, it's not that I feel like I am in third grade, but I remember my BFF Kristin so well and I remember that dude Paul I totally dug who I think was a Mormon and moved away and I remember my mean teacher and the deaf girl who got her hair caught in the blender, and so I think I know what B is feeling. Sometimes, when the awesome babysitter Samantha has boyfriend problems and wonders about getting married, I feel not so much like I am having boyfriend problems or wondering about getting married, but that I know exactly how she is feeling. Which I probably really don't anymore, but the point is, I think that I do.

So when I find myself at wakes for the fathers of my friends, or writing notes to friends when I can't be there, it starts to dawn on me: Ms. Picket, you ARE old, maybe not old enough to know when to go home before the hangover kicks in, but at least old enough to starting seeing a generation one up from you start to pass the torch along.

And Ms. Picket, you are old enough to have solo-kayaking kids who are starting to need you less (which dude, is a trend that shows no slowing down), so let's make, um, a little note to yourself: you, my friend, ARE the grown-up.