Blink

The first milestone that seemed so far away into the future that hover boards would surely have come and gone by then was 1999, the year my middle brother was slated to graduate college and my baby brother would be bar mitzvahed. I remember giggling along with my parents in 1988 or 89 at the unimaginable idea of Jason in a cap and gown, and baby Josh, who was then still in diapers, grown up enough to not only talk, but sing Torah troupe in front of an audience of kippah-wearing spectators.

As I don’t have to tell you, 1999 has come and gone in the proverbial blink of my hazel green eyes and no hover boards. (Robert Zemeckis was ill-advised, I guess. Or just a hopeful dreamer.)

Jason’s cap has long ago been thrown high into the air and his gown recycled. He’s a successful professional now, married with children. And Baby Josh led the entire morning Shabbat service, squeaky voice and all, and 15 years later is now a freshly-minted lawyer, and recently engaged.

And me?

As much as I sometimes still see myself in my mind’s eye as the girl swiveling in a chair at the kitchen table and laughing in the face of the future, I am somehow here (or there. Whichever one is the future.)

I am a married woman and not only are my own three children all able to ride bikes, dive into the deep end of the pool, and tie their own shoes, but I sent my youngest off today on the bus to her first day of real school.

It’s a serendipitous junction I’ve arrived at: I just turned 40 last month. This week, I will celebrate the bar mitzvah year of my marriage. And today, all three of my children have officially made it to elementary school.

I blinked, I guess. Again.

Or else this day was so very far away into the future, I never got the chance to imagine it.