Steve and I went to a wedding on Sunday. I heard ahead of time that there would be a few tables from my gym, including a kids’ table and an adults’ table. I assumed I’d be at the kids’ table. Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?

The simple answer is, I wouldn’t be, because I am OLD. In fact, at our “dignified” adults’ table, Steve and I were the oldest by several years. And as I pondered the whole wedding phenomenon I realized that at 47, I am in fact solidly in that generation that is giving the wedding, rather than having the wedding. Never mind that I’ve been on the participation “team” for years, as a singer. Never mind that my own children, as teenagers, had better be many years from their own weddings…I’m solidly, undeniably, in the older generation now. You know, the ones that did the Electric Slide and Macarena unironically, slightly after the Earth cooled. Like, when they came out the first time…

This is also apparent when we are at home now. Both kids would rather be out with their friends than with us, and because they’re teens, that is free-form hanging out, rather than play dates and plans. We don’t always know exactly where they are and exactly when they’re coming home. In fact, approximately 98% of the time I want to be in bed before they even get home. It’s a far cry from last year, when James was still in middle school and Celia was so sick.

We are also running full tilt into college visits, planning, and making up for lost time. This has mostly meant that Celia is trying to do as much as she possibly can, while also visiting every college she can, and getting the best grades she can. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, but also frustrating. We want her to slow down; we want her to take off. (She REALLY wants us to take off…) It is such a blessing to see her be able to do all that she wasn’t able to do last year. In fact, one of my friends who is herself a breast cancer survivor, mentioned one day, “Isn’t it weird how there’s a part of life that just starts up again like nothing ever happened?” The best thing would be if she goes forward without having cancer define her. But in a very real way it defines all of us, every day. I mean, I get her impatience completely. She saw firsthand how fleeting life can be. She has made friends who have had numerous relapses. She’s acquired the occasional gallows humor, too: “Geez, mom, of course the doctors and nurses think I look great. The last time they saw me I looked like I was dying.” So maybe it’s not such a bad thing to spend your wasted youth knowing that there’s no time to waste your youth.

And I am attempting to continue to write without a driving purpose. It’s telling (to me anyway) that I first set up this blog 3 years ago in response to people saying, “Your Facebook posts are funny! You ought to write a blog.” And then, without having a direct purpose, I had trouble writing. Caring Bridge was great because it was a good convergence of my needing to process and your needing to know stuff. I needed a way to get over that little voice in my brain that said, “Oh come on…who CARES about your life?” Well, cancer certainly did that for me.

I’ll post up on CB that this is going, and then? I’ll do my best to just write, and I’ll assume that I am a writer when I don’t feel the need to be asked to write. Or maybe that will mean I’m actually grown UP.