I think I'll stay
21 forever...
"How old are you, Mommy?"
asked my little niece.
"Twenty-one plus"
said my sister
as my mother had said
to her and me
and my grandmother had said
before her.
Because you don't need years or numbers
to measure time
when you're a mother.
Instead your days pass
with upsherins and bar mitzvas
with the baby eating table food
and the little one's first day of school.
But me?
I think I'll just stay
21 forever.
So I don't need to count
the days of waiting
the months of hoping
the years of getting older
and nothing else.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Twenty-One Forever
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21 comments:
BTW, hat tip to SD for the brilliant idea of birthday postponement. (Who needs birthdays when you can have B4S parties instead?)
beautiful :-)
wow, i like your new birthday. random!
B~M, you totally stole this idea for me. I was waiting until closer to my birthday to post this.... And I am obviously smarter than you, because I had the foresight to stay 20, not 21. :-D
Other than that....I refuse to comment on this. I think you know what I have to say. (And even tho I am no longer at that teeny keyboard...I'll pass.)
:-)
but you don't have a little niece....
also, remember 19B?
Beautiful if sad... :)
U - LOL I was also thinking this could wait until b-day time, except due to picture-posting issues I've been late in posting anything...
SD - Foresight? Too late for that, dear... (does that mean this post will have y'all thinking I'm 21 again?) And I do not know what you have to say, because you fell asleep without saying it.
Pobody - Uh, what am I missing here? I have lots of little nieces (though they're growing up faster than I am) and passed 19B ages ago...
Ezzie - You're only saying that cuz I took your advice :-P
B~M dear, I fell asleep because you were absolutely refusing to listen. Oh, and maybe the fact that it was 3 am and I needed to be up at 8 played into it? hmmmm....
I won't be at the computer tonight, and you know I can't type it out on big stinker, but tomorrow night, assuming i still remember (big if...) I will tell you what I was gonna tell you last night. Oh, or you can call... ;-)
May you find your zivug soon. (If that's what you're looking and waiting for.)
I don't have much to say on this one but I feel the pain between the lines. I hope that you are zoche to be answering your own children very soon...
Ahdunno, I kind of like being 22. 21 is so "just made it."
B~M - HA! No, it's what I said the first time, too! :)
Ignoring the last paragraph for a moment, my mom always says that she is 21 but it kinda ended up funny when a 4 year old neice asked her how come her bubbie is younger than her mother of 28!!
Looking at the issue of age, I am sure that as the years have moved on you have lived them to the full and had lots of life experiences, some more positive than others but through it all you have learnt and grown...would you really like to repeat all those years again? Be proud of your age - it is a brocha that Hashem has granted you another year :)
A bit sad, but great poem, and I suppose that's where "forever 21" got their store name from.
and I agree with Floating Reflections.
I'm older than 21, however, many don't know, which is cool
I tell myself that my life is running on my own timeline and that's okay. Even if according to everybody else I am way past overdue (yeah, like the time a few years ago when a friend asked me if I'd consider adopting a child if I was still single at 40...bear in mind that I was maybe 27 tops, at the time!).
Starr: Ouch! But seriously....have u never felt like it?
FR--you mean thinking of adopting a child? Honestly, it is hard enough in the frum world for a kid to fit in, having an adoptive single mother wouldn't help.
I remember going to a Q & A speech for singles several years ago, the rabbi was extremely surprised (and pained as well) that the very first question was on the halachic perspective on a woman getting eggs frozen so that she would still have a good chance at having children even if she got married later on in life. I guess I was in my mid-twenties then, the person who asked it was in her mid-thirties (I did hear she got married a few years later). Anyway, the rabbi didn't give an answer but he said that hearing it was sort of a wake-up call, he hadn't realized that single "girls" weren't just 22 years panicking but grown women taking an honest look at the reality of their lives. He also said he was surprised that there were so many girls at the session (a large number of them are married by now, thinking back on it, though not all).
Starr: Wishing and doing are two different things. Would I ever do it? No, it would be selfish as the child as would be growing up in a less than perfect family setting and as you rightly said would create difficulties for the child. Do I wish that I could? Yes.
SD - You STILL have not said what you have to say, which I'm starting to question...
Chanie, HS - Amen, and thanks.
FR - Yeah, there's been lots of positive. But I'm just not so interested anymore, yknow? (and we've had that paradox in my family too -- the bubby younger than mommy thing ;-)
JSOB - LOL! I actually passed one of those stores (which I almost never do) and thought of your comment...
Starr - Now I'm curious as to the conclusion about the egg discussion... Because if it is OK, it's much better off younger. Seems like a defeatist kind of perspective, but when it comes to delicate genetic material one doesn't want to take chances...
Well, the rabbi said it was beyond the scope of the session so he never gave an answer.
However, I know somebody who attended a class about halacha and medical issues--I don't know what the rabbi said about freezing eggs (though I can ask her, I'm sure it came up)--and I know he discussed single women getting pregnant from a sperm donor. IIRC, he said it was not against halacha, but it is wrong to do because it is unfair to the child.
BM dear, you are the one with the entire conversation in your gchat history, unlike me, who had it as texts. That being said, go and look back at what we were discussing and remind me what I didn't tell you, because I haven't the foggiest clue. :-p
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