Monday, May 16, 2005
Do I feel different?
When I was a young girl, I was under the impression that when I lost my virginity I would feel different. I think that deep down all girls think that they will. Maybe some of them do. I didn’t. I didn’t look in the mirror and see anything different and I didn’t feel as though I had changed. There are a few milestones in a female’s life that are supposed to change them. There is the first period, which is supposed to make you feel all grown up when really the first few months you just feel kind of gross and with drawn. Then there is your first time having sex, which is supposed to make you feel like you have shared something wonderful for the first time with another person. I guess that there are the select few who do feel wonderful afterwards, but most of us just feel a little sore and a little more or a little less curious about sex. When you turn eighteen, you’re supposed to feel like an adult, but really you don’t feel any differently then you did when you were sixteen or twenty for that matter.
I think that becoming an adult happens when you feel truly responsible for another person. Nothing quite heightens your awareness of yourself and the world around you like being in full charge of another person’s well being. This happened for me when I was thirteen. I remember it happening, I remember feeling that change. My sister was seven and she and I were walking through the town where we lived. I remember that she was too close to the road or something and it scared the shit out of me. I literally felt that feeling, that one where you know it is your job to insure someone else’s safety. That was when I felt grown up. I moved out a year later, as many of you know, and my life changed a little more than two years later.
I was sixteen when Amanda was born. Too young? Yeah, I know. But, you know, I don’t think it would have been any different for me ten years later. When that little girl was born, I changed again. I became a mother and that was the strongest change I had ever felt. Suddenly, my life didn’t matter unless it was to take care of her. I would have died a thousand times, in tortured pain, quietly to protect her. I would give her anything she ever needed without a second thought. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I would have put myself second without ever questioning it. I was there for her and then eventually her sisters as well. Any mother can tell you that seeing and holding your first child changes you in a way that you never could have imagined.
There have been other times when I have changed and felt it, probably too many to list. But, normally, on my birthday, I don’t feel different; I don’t feel older or better seasoned. I rarely feel excited because I don’t usually have anything to be excited about. Emilee said to me last week “Mommy, there are only three more days until your birthday! Are you excited?” and while I told her yes, I really wasn’t. Not because I have a negative outlook on my age changing or anything, just because it is really little more than another day. Right? Well, not this year.
This year, for the first time, I feel different. When it became my birthday on Sunday morning, I felt different. I feel older. I feel different. Suddenly, reflecting on my past birthdays, even last year, I feel silly. I am looking back merely one year and am surprised by how different I feel about my actions. I could understand feeling adverse if I had done something. If I had gotten into another bad relationship and had regrets but really little has changed since my last birthday. Why do I feel so different now? My thinking process train literally jumped onto another track. Has this ever happened to you?
Ok, I am rambling and this is long, so I will stop. Thank you, all of you, who sent emails and ecards and commented to wish me a happy birthday! Thank you so much. One thing about this year, I have so many more friends than I ever thought I would have, whether they be real life or online :)
I’m a quarter of a century old now. How bizarre.
~Kate
so eloquently put by katehopeeden at 7:40 AM
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Who: katehopeeden
Where: San Antonio, Texas Yeah, so I am all that you see here. I am friendly and kind, crazy and bitchy, playful and flirty... sometimes I am funny but mostly I just write the first thing that comes to mind and then stop when it ends. I love life and I am lucky to be living the one that I am. Want to know more?
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12/14/84 - 1/26/05


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