When you are younger, you are told (and believe) that you can do anything. But I know the truth. Here are five things I thought I would do when I got older, that I will now never be able to do:
1. Marry a young Paul McCartney. Granted, this was a long shot even when I dreamt it up, because by that time, Paul was already fifty years old. That, however, did not stop me from dreaming of the day I would walk up the isle with a 20-something Paul McCartney.
Now that I’m older I know that Paul only marries blondes or women of wealth. Also, he’s currently 64 and the time travel machine I imagined would be built by now is nowhere in sight. So… Marrying (young) Paul McCartney is out.
2. Live the single life in a trendy apartment in the big city. Clearly I’m still happily married to MC, so the single part is out. And now that I’m firmly settled into the ‘burbs, I can’t imagine not having my yard.
But the biggest thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older: I’m very territorial. I don’t think I could handle people walking down the hallway of my trendy uptown pad and touching my door. It’s MY door! I only want people I know touching my door! And just anybody walking down the hallway to their own trendy uptown apartment could walk by and slap their mitts on my door… IT’S MINE! QUIT TOUCHING IT!
3. Be the pilot of a commercial airliner. I did at one time desperately believe I wanted to be a pilot. But I was never meant to be a pilot, and this point was driven home on a recent flight I made with T Bub and Lovely L. As the plane taxied down the runway, I held Lovely L’s hand so she wouldn’t be nervous and asked T Bub what every single noise the plane made was. And we hadn’t even gotten off the ground yet.
As the plane revved it’s engines in preparation for takeoff, Lovely L, who’s hand I was now crushing in a death-grip of motherly love, had an idea. She leaned over to T Bub and said, ‘we have to get this plane off the ground! Help me pat!’ If you’ve never seen an episode of Little Einsteins, this will make no sense to you. But my 11 and 13 year old ‘pat, pat, pat, pat, patted’ the plane into the air so I would quit being terrified by the plane taking off. (Yes, it helped. I was laughing hysterically by the time we were in the air.)
Because it doesn’t matter how many times it’s explained to me, I will never comprehend the physics of how that thing gets and stays in the air.
4. Win a metal in the Olympics. Note how I didn’t say win a ‘gold metal’. I had long ago decided that just winning a metal would be good enough for me. Once I won, I would wear my metal around to family events and tell funny stories of my time spent in the Olympic Village.
However, there was one minor setback in my journey to the Olympics. I was not actually good at any single sport. And by not very good, I mean astoundingly bad. I figured I would probably have to settle for a winter sport like the luge that didn’t seem to require much coordination.
Now that I’m older, I realize it would take all of about three seconds before I crashed the luge sled thing and possibly killed myself. Since I don’t think a metal (gold or not) is worth my death and I’m not speedy or coordinated enough for any other sport… the Olympics is definitely not going to happen.
5. Have two sets of identical twins. Maybe more. Yeah. That’s not gonna happen. We’re done here…
No, really. I mean it. ; )
