I will be 50 this year. I never planned to be 50, it just sort of happened, and I'm not sure I even know what it really means. My memory extends farther than some, not as far as others, I'm still in college (my father avoids answering any question about my age when his friends ask him how old his daughters are), I have a grandchild (!)who's 8, I don't own a house--I can't quite get used to the fact that it's 2001. I remember thinking when I was 10 or 12 that MAYBE I'd be alive when the century turned.

I think I work with teenagers because I like to remember what it's like to be so alive, so torn by hormones and emotions and uncertainties--even though I think teenagers today have to deal with things I was thankfully unaware of (and some that weren't even invented yet when I was 16). There is also something very poignant about realizing that I'm no longer an adolescent, a state of being I think I dragged out for a much longer time than I could have. If I had any doubts that I'm an adult, they're certainly gone now. I've worked for the last week with a gently autistic 15 year old girl, who has a tendency to say exactly what's on her mind--the first day I met her, she said, you're kinda old, huh. I agreed that I was, kind of. She wanted to know exactly how old. I said I was over 40. Oh, she said, really, really, really old. Then she said, you have kinda thick eyebrows and you should really shave off that mustache. I have to admit that I felt more than a little self-conscious the rest of the evening. But I don't know about shaving...

blt