Life Cycles

Years ago, as a freshman in college, I was very much disturbed by the fact that my friends and colleagues were getting married. Bearing in mind that I went to a very conservative religious institution, there were many nineteen year-old brides. I could hardly fathom that. Now that I've finished my undergraduate degree and am in graduate school, the years have passed and now announcements of engagement hardly faze me. It's not even a novelty anymore that people are going ring shopping or picking the perfect dress or sending out announcements . . . it all gets a big sigh from me (although, certainly in some cases I am very excited).

The thing that has begun to happen now is that my friends--the ones that have been getting married for the past few years--are now starting to pop out children. I heard of a woman of 26 who already had five children! But really, it's kind of freaking me out a little bit. I guess it shouldn't be such a shock to me. After all, that's generally the way little nuclear families are born. Still, to think that people that I went to elementary school and Sunday school with are now having BABIES is strange to me.

Life is funny that way. Right now, in my living room there are two family portraits handsomely juxtaposed. It is my mother's side of the family: one portrait, ca. 1985; the other, New Year's Eve 2007. It's interesting to see how everyone has grown and changed over the past two decades. Not one of us is in the same place as we were 20 years ago--progress is evident. Some of us didn't even exist then (my cousin, Scott)! And now I look at the picture of my three-ish year-old brother, grinning vigorously next to the picture of the same kid--only, now he's a man--and his new wife, and think . . . life goes on. Growing, changing, living, dying . . . life goes on. Ob-lah-di, Ob-lah-dah.