Martin Luther King Day

Today is the 10^th day the kids have been home. I am happy to report that we survived the snow and being cooped up together, but I am pretty sure that even the kids are anxious to go back to school.  Our driveway is like Mount Rushmore and once it got icy, we were stuck.  It really sucked.  You know that movie “The Shining”?  I thought about Stephen King during the storm and realized that he too was probably stuck in the house for days with his messy kids and nagging wife, wandering around like a zombie going without exercise, sunshine and the desire to shower.  I also realized that if your family can survive a snowstorm without killing each other before it melts, well dammit, you can survive anything!

We woke up this morning in a rush because I had a hair appointment……going blonde and I am excited to feel like Brittany again.  I dropped the kids off with Libbie and went to the bank to make a deposit and realized that it is Martin Luther King Day!  Then later in the day I proved that blondes not only have more fun, but forget about national holidays twice in one day.  I loaded the kids up to go to the library….duh, Britt.  It’s closed.  So I took the big twins home to clean their rooms and I took the babies with me to the gym.

I think that the most important thing to note today is that I realized something very bizarre, yet very obvious.  Did you know that Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech was in August of 1963?  Well I never knew what the exact date was, but I know one thing, I thought it was like a million years before I was born!  It’s in black and white on TV, so it has to be old, right?  It was 17 years before I was born!  Why is it that I just now realize that the 60’s weren’t forever-ago?  I mean, Adam Sandler was born in the 60’s and he’s still cool!  17 years is the difference between me and a 13 year old.  And now that same 13-year-old thinks that I’m old and the 80’s are forever-ago.  I mean, in their defense, I am as old as Pac-Man.  Yes, Pac-Man came out the year I was born, 1980.  I don’t care what they say, it still kicks ass.  They can have their games with 500 buttons while their brains turn into Spam.  I'm sticking with Mario and Luigi.

The weirdest part about this revelation is that I heard all of these weird, cliché things about getting older and how your perspective on time changes and how it’s all relative, blah blah blah….but I didn’t think it applied to me, just like every other young person.  Or if I did think it applied to me, I didn’t understand it and knew I’d have to understand it later.  Well, I do now! And it’s weird! It does make me feel better about aging though.  Imagine what I’ll know when I am 70, and I don’t even know it yet.