becoming our parents

It was bad enough the day I realized I had become "that old lady." I was maybe 32, and we were off skiing in the Poconos, and some ditzy teenager was skiing completely over her head on a mogul field, falling, slipping, sliding, laughing . . . . being a danger to herself and to others and having an obliviously fine time doing it. She took a particularly nasty fall, and I skied over to her, reached out my pole to help her up, and asked her if she was okay. She replied, "yes," which I took as license to tell her to take her skis off and walk the rest of the way down and not come back to this run until she could ski it. That moment -- I became the "old lady," the "anti-fun police." Just like the lady who had griped me out on MaryJane in Colorado more than a decade earlier.

Now, I'm not just the old lady, I am my mother and my father in equal measure. I talk about the weather, and about aches and pains. I note loudly that I am apparently the only one who can close a closet door. I mail gifts late. I gripe about politicians. I sometimes develop a Tourettes-style language cycle when driving (it's the other drivers who cause this, natch). And the thing is -- I hardly notice it. I think that's the genius of aging, it happens slowly and in such a way that you don't panic as you morph into your parents.