Teaching an Old Dog
One day at the tender age of eighteen, I stood at the counter of a fast food restaurant with my sister Tracy, herself merely twenty-four years old. A should-be retiree shuffled painfully from the fryers to the register to take our order. Smiling kindly at us, she said to my sister, "My goodness, you and your daughter certainly look alike!"
Heart beat one...heart beat two...heart frozen.
At the time I thought to myself, "Don't laugh! If you value your life, don't even smirk." In the space of a nanosecond, I witnessed infinite emotions change her face. I've never forgotten that moment, and at a safe distance enjoyed how simply damn funny it was.
Did I say it was funny? Yes, I did. Note I am not using the past tense of to be to speak of the time of the occurrence, but that it used to be funny. The summer before last was not kind to me. In fact, you could call it the "Endless Summer" if you were referring to an endless test of my patience and self-esteem.
That summer I enrolled at Texas State at the late age of thirty-two. The nights preceding new-student orientation, I twitched, fretted and questioned my decision. Despite the unquestionable need, want, to return to school, I couldn’t squash my embarrassment at taking this step so late in life. Not only would some of my classmates have been born the same year I was pancaking parallel-parking cones in Drivers Ed, but theoretically someone in my Psychology of Human Sexuality class could be dating my nephew.
And as suspected, on the day of orientation I found myself in a sea of short-shorted, long-legged girls, half my girth and a two-thirds my age. Tan and revived after a long summer, they asked about sorority rush, dorms, and financial aid. Elmer’s Glue pasty after a summer of air-conditioning and obsessive slatherings of Oil of Olay SPF 200 moisturizer, I asked (often) where the nearest bathroom was located. Unlike me, when ushered across campus to Advising, a high-pressured whine of suppressed gasping did not emit from their noses while ascending tens-of-thousands of campus stairs on a deep-fryer summer day.
When we finally arrived at the advising center, everyone else mingled while I gratefully settled into the air-conditioning and a cushy rolling chair. The chair, clearly having its own agenda, instead bolted out from under me, dumping me with a sonic boom onto the chipped Formica flooring. Across the room, a colossal hunky boy-toy stood up, grabbed his cheeks, and brayed, “Oh my god, ma’am. Ma’am?! Are you all right, MA’AM?!”
A mere five days later the event had gratefully sunk, or perhaps been shoved, kicking hysterically, into my subconscious. My husband Chad and I sat at a local Tex-Mex restaurant, looking forward to dinner, drinks, and the temporary abandonment of clean, healthy living. Sporting a Texas State pin on her apron, our student/waitress Tara appeared, crouching sociably next to our table. While this stance is somehow meant to imply friendliness, from my viewpoint Tara appeared as a highly made-up, bodiless head floating in space on the other side of the table. Suppressing the temptation to shout an order for a Burger Supreme into her wide smile, I instead requested a heavily-salted, heavily-blended, and just plain heavy margarita. Hesitantly, a tad embarrassed, she asked, "umm, can I…errr, can I see your I.D.?"
Oh my! I giggled...wait, was that me, did I just giggle? Why, yes I did! I reached for my wallet, smiling as I said, "Well thank you! But I've been legal for 12 years."
Squinting at me, she said, "Ohhh, yeah, okay. It's kind of dark in here."
Damn.
Though I tried, as the poets say, to keep on keepin’ on, the few days before the start of school, my anxieties were ratcheted to a level enviously treated in my mother’s day with valium and gin. Lacking prescribed narcotics, I tried instead to focus on the mundane back-to-school mechanics such as buying textbooks. Off I went to the local book-shark where I prepared to spend $100 for a textbook which was NEW and IMPROVED by four new bar charts over last-year’s $30 used edition. Offered “free with textbook purchase” was a box of goodies, consisting inexplicably of a Lady Schick razor, a package of soy chips, a coupon for a “Buy One Get One Free!” burrito from the restaurant next door, and a glow-in-the-dark condom. I could, at least, get some use out of the coupon, so the night before school I took my limping pocketbook and my coupon to grab a celebratory burrito with Chad.
There we were...back where I began. I once again stood in line at the counter of a fast food restaurant. Instead of a middle-aged, weary cashier lady, behind the counter worked a pimply, pokey-haired Texas State freshman. He seemed a nice enough kid, chatting to us while he prepared our flotation-device-sized burritos. When I handed him the coupon, he instantly recognizing it as a token from the bookstore and asked, "Oh, another one of these! So, do you guys have a kid who goes to school here?"
That face. I felt those things flying across my face -- those things that had pinched my sister's so tightly. All I could do was hang my head and moan in pain. I feared that if I looked the boy in the eyes, his head would explode.
I recognized how funny it was. I did and I do. It's hilarious, right? My husband and I chuckled throughout dinner. Then why, someone tell me, did I cry a little after I got home?
It's not so much age as being aged. In a second, this boy brought out all my deep insecurities about panting my way across a campus of 20,000 kids who can't rent a car and who would look at me as a cautionary tale.
Two years later, I still feel very far outside the realm of what so many people think of as “young,” especially when I compare myself to what I see and hear every week on campus. But rather than feeling insecure about my age, I’m grateful for what I no longer am and for whom I have become. In 1991, my first year in college, I missed my Botany final because I hadn’t attended class in so long I didn’t realize they’d changed rooms. In 2007 I made the Dean’s List, won some academic awards, and have mysterious chest pains when I contemplate skipping class. Though my fellow students often kindly say, “Wow, you don’t look thirty-three!” as though the look of thirty-three must involve some sort of hideous facial scabs, I no longer cringe. Despite being plagued with a creeping number of spider veins, this skin is the one I’d far rather be in than the one I had sixteen years ago. The comfort I feel as me is something I never felt the first time I tried – and failed – to be a college student. I realize that today, should I encounter that same burrito kid, this time I might pull him over the counter by his long side burns and say, "You know what, I am you. I may be wider and I may have three distinct wrinkles across my forehead, but I am just a saner, smarter eighteen-year-old inside. So the next time you look at a woman, who may or may not be older, and try to quantify them, I want you to remember that the real difference between me and that girl whose pants you're currently trying to get into is that with my extra years of experience I really know how to hurt a man."
I am coming to terms, my friends. I am coming to terms.
Where is everybody??!!
He scored 8 points first game and 6 points the second game. Now i don't want to brag, but we won first game 8 - 0, second game 6 - 4.
We're having so much fun...
My DS is still in the dark - he thinks we're off to Paris! 
I'm so looking forward to the warm weather - it's ffffreezing here at the moment... 
I know exactly what you mean - I have been waiting to book our flights too - Southwest is supposed to be coming out with our dates on December 20 - but I start freaking out - what if the prices are sky high and I should have booked something else sooner? what if I don't get a good deal? good arrival times?? i could drive myself crazy!!
, I haven't had much chance to get online - hopefully I'll catch up asap... 
Hmmmm...how things change.
So here's to 2008 - everyone take your vitamins. 
Sad to say, my sports ability has not improved any.
My DD's not exactly overkeen either and I'm not pushing it - we're a pretty independent duo and that's how she prefers it... So let's just keep chatting for the next few months and, if you should fancy a quiet drink in the Promenade Lounge sometime, give me the nod... 
How about y'all?
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And it does start while the park is still open to regular customers.
) I used to mess with my brother by calling him up and reading him descriptions of disorders from my Abnormal Psych book. I honestly think I could have convinced him he was a pyromaniac if I'd had more time. 
Whatever you decide to do, you will be amazing at it.
