It Ain't Bad to be Old(er)

On this, the eve of my 44th birthday, I have been thinking.  Because I have this dilemma.  You see, the basket weaving class I want to take conflicts with my mandatory monthly Girl Scout Leader meetings.  And when I was young(er), I never in a million years would have imagined a life that involved basket weaving and Girl Scout Leadering.  While we're at it, I also love knitting and bird-watching and, apparently, Hall and Oates.  Listening to Ratt and KISS and Bauhaus and other icons of my youth is fine in small doses for nostalgia, but it always sets off my silliness detector.  Plus, it's too LOUD.  Now, I get excited about field trips to sheep farms.  I have a hard time staying awake past 9:00.  I frequently take pictures of food.  And I am on the PTA.  And I am totally OK with all of that.  The Ghost of Teenager Tara would be mortified, but I am happy.  I tried pretty hard to be cool as a teenager, but I was really just a dork all along.  The difference now, is that I KNOW I'm a dork and I embrace it completely.  So, hooray for birds and yarn and baskets and the smooth and mellow sounds of the 70s!   Hooray for the silver streak in my hair!  I am happy, relatively healthy, I have awesome friends, and the best family ever, most of my favorite people live close to me, and the ones that don't have the miracle of Skype, or visit from time to time. I am really really thankful for all of it.  So bring on the cake and ice cream and all 44 candles if you've got 'em.  I'm not getting depressed about THIS birthday.  I'll take as many as I can get.