Kate’s playing t-ball this spring, on the same field where I played many years ago. As I watched her game last night, I looked around the park and saw so many of the same faces I had seen on the field way back then.
But something was different, something was off.
We weren’t the kids running the bases, fielding ground balls or picking dandelions. We were the spectators, the coaches, the league organizers, the ones carrying Dora lawn chairs and passing out Capri Suns after the game. We were the parents.
We were the grown ups.
How did that happen? And who approved it? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Frankly I felt like we were all impostors, that there were some actual, real adults behind the scenes pulling strings.
I talked it over with Jenny, and she said she and Bobby had a very similar experience during Joshua’s kindergarten screening. He’s entering the same school they both attended, and they had the same feeling I did – the juxtaposition of roles, the impossibility that they weren’t still in elementary themselves, but it was their kid’s turn.
I don’t think I know enough to be a real grown up yet. Surely there are some secrets yet to be bestowed upon me, some magical moment when it will click and when I will start feeling like an adult.
But it sure hasn’t happened yet.
I know the feeling. I am forty five and when I was in my thirties I can remember asking my mother when do we start feeling our age. She said probably never. Its really in your head.
I feel the same way all of the time! I think about the way I saw the grown ups when I was a little kid. They were in charge. They had power. And they had it all together. It is fun to remind yourself that your children view you that way. Boy do we have them fooled!
Amen to that. It makes me think back to how I thought my parents knew it all – but they probably felt as clueless as I feel now. Hopefully our kids won’t be any the wiser until they are our age! 🙂
I know! I’m an imposter too. Don’t tell my toddler; it could freak him out.
Me too. I don’t live in my home town but I often wonder who left me in charge of these little peeps like I am a grown up.
I remember when I was working for a mental health agency when I still lived in Ohio. I had to go back to my old school several times and interact with old teachers as their peer instead of student. Weird. And I took a few graduate classes with my old English teacher. He kept yelling at me for calling him Mr. Smith instead of John.
I know what you mean. There are some days I feel like an adult and have it all under control, but most days I am just flying by the seat of my pants.
I felt like that when I went back to my childhood church as an adult. Mrs. Snyder became Shirley, Mr. Morgan (who was also my elementary school principal, with a son my age) was Tom. It was just weird. And I too, felt as though I couldn’t possibly be an adult yet – it was only 15 years ago (?!?) that I was in high school.
I too have felt that when talking to HS friends especially it is all so surreal. I don’t think I’m there yet either.
Still waiting for that epiphany moment, too.
I had similar thoughts last week. You see, I have reconnected with several girls from elementary school on FaceBook. When I see pictures of them, I don’t see the crow’s feet, the poochie bellies from birthin’ babies…I see the sweet faces of innocence sitting in Mrs. Brown’s first grade classroom. Or the flush of red cheeks after hanging upside down on the monkey bars. But the truth is, we are the same age as our mother’s were in high school! How did this happen? We’re not grownups, dang it!