Today I am Middle-Aged

It's one thing to be 39 looking forward to 40, but it's a completely different psycho-physiological experience to be middle-aged. 


I have discovered at least two factors that correlate with a person's middle-agedness:

• The amount of time a person spends driving kids places, and
• The number of times the term "hot-flash" is used in conversation.

If this is true, then today I was middle-aged.


I spent a total of 4.5 hours driving kids to school, delivering medicine to school (young son recently had his tonsils out and, unlike when I was a child and my mother sent paragoric with me to school so I could take it at lunch, a parent or legal guardian must now be present and administer all drugs, including Tylenol, which are not registered in the school office and accompanied by a doctor's note), picking kids up from school, dropping off carpoolers, and taking my older son to have his teeth and braces cleaned.


That clearly hits my daily quota necessary for the first correlation. As to the second correlation, I have been having hot-flashes for 7 years now and have gotten so used to them that I just don't talk about them so much (though I have noticed people no longer tell me I am too young to have them...I'm sure there is a 3rd correlation in there just especially for me!). 


Today, as several of my mom-friends and I chit-chatted waiting for our 8th graders to meander their way out of the school building, the conversation turned to hot flashes. It surprised me because this is not a common topic for this group. Then I remembered. 


Recall, if you will, a previous discussion in which I shared that most of my friends are 4-5 years older than I am. That puts these women at 43-44, which is just about the time most women start having hot flashes. They are talking about hot flashes now because they have just started having them.


And my quota for correlation #2 was met with room to spare!


So today I am middle-aged. Tomorrow I will revel in my near-40ness again. But today I will take my gas-pedal weary foot and my troublesome sciatic nerve and my cup of geritol tea and head to bed early.