How did I get to the middle without realizing I was on the edge?

How did I enter this quagmire of parenting a teen without realizing what I was headed towards?  Did I miss the signs?  Is it like the odd time I missed using a box of hand me down clothes because my kid had outgrown them by the time I realized it?

Will the teen years be the same? Will we be through these years before I realize it?

Some days I notice this gorgeous, lush, exotic jungle we’re living in – that of ‘teenagedom’.  On those days I adore the perspective that living with and parenting a teen brings.  The preening of feathers and the bright colours.  The brand new awareness of self, of body, of the world, of peers.

Other days all I can see is the quicksand that is sucking me down and threatening to engulf me.  On these days the Attitude (with a capital ‘A’) and the sense that this teen (though he’s technically 12) knows more than his parents, leaves me gasping.  I get whiplash from watching him veer from one extreme emotion to the next.

Some days I vaguely recognize the jungle path we’re traveling, having been here some time ago.  Other days, as a bird of a different gender, nothing is familiar and little makes sense.

Mostly though it’s the overall jungle, with all its lushness, full of promise and verdant growth and surprises that keeps life interesting and keeps me on my toes.

I’m in the middle of that jungle now, with no clear recollection of how I got here.

What have you arrived in the middle of without realizing how you got there?

It’s my birthday today.

I’m 44 according to my passport.

Biologically though I’m 39 or so realage.com says.  Real age is all about “living life to the youngest” and has the backing of Dr. Oz who sits on their advisory board.

Harness a bit of patience, go the website, answer all sorts of questions about your health and it will then calculate your biological age (e.g. your age based on your lifestyle, health, dailing living practices etc.).

Note: this is not about looking young.  Stage exit left Botox.  It’s about being healthy, feeling great and being kind to your body.

What could be a better birthday gift?

Berber Imp

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind… Nobody grows old by merely a number of years.  We grow old by deserting our ideals.

(Poet Samuel Ullman, from his poem ‘Youth’, as quoted in Gods and Soldiers, the Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing.)

How old are your ideals?

For that matter how old is your faith?

Your vision?

Your self-image?

How old are you?