Seventeen

When I was seventeen I was a jerk. I am completely aware of this fact. The world was my oyster and I was gonna tear it up. I knew what I was and wasn't gonna do and screw you if you thought different. That being said, I had a job, was decently respectful to my elders, and really tried not to do horribly dumb things.

I'm telling you this because I had a run in with a seventeen year old boy yesterday that really bothered me. I was driving out of my neighborhood and pulling up to a stop sign on a major road. There was a car turning left and I was going right so I veered to the side lane. Emanuel had been yelling to his friend who was on a bike on the side of the road. I didn't really pay attention, and thank God I didn't because a boy on a bike came around the front of the other car. I almost hit him!! He swerved and I slammed the brakes and somehow he didn't go splat. I threw up my hands in the universal "What the hell?!" and he yelled "whaddya mean what the hell?!" I lost it. "I mean watch where the hell you're going?"  I screeched out my window. (Yes I cuss at children, so sue me.) The gravity of the situation was apparently lost on him because he sassed back "You watch where you're going!" Wrong answer kid! I was up and outta that truck faster than you can say assaulting a minor. "Tell me to watch where I'm going. How about your little ass doesn't ride in circles around cars at a busy intersection?" I grumbled in my head. "I almost hit you!" I yelled. "I know!" he yelled back. "You need to watch where you're going! What were you thinking?" I harped like a true mother. "I had to get him across the road safely!" he snorted gesturing to the boy Manny had being yelling at. "Why don't you get yourself across safe too huh?" I yelled back. This boy, this man-child, looked at me with a sneer and snapped, "I'm seventeen years old and I have life insurance. I don't give a shit!" I was flabbergasted. Instead of just walking away though, I had to get in the last word. And instead of making it meaningful, or giving him something to think about I screamed "Well great! Next time I'll run your ass over then!!"

As I returned to my truck and frightened children he spat out, "Get back in your truck you fat old bitch!" I didn't throw it into reverse and run him over as I promised. I didn't drag his punk ass home to his momma. I didn't even say another word. (to him. I had full blown rages in my head) It was over and I was too confused and tired to try and reason with him. I vaguely remember being that age and I'm pretty sure I never would have spoken that way to an adult. Plus I'm not a fat old bitch. I'm young and hip...aren't I?

The truth is, I am old. Not in actual years, as I'm really only 27, but in the way I think and act. I realized this as was talking to my friend on the phone today. She is awaiting her first child and has been locked in her house. She's one day past her due date and her husband has visions of her delivering in a super market parking lot. "Isn't it amazing? she said. "This is my last Friday as a non-parent. I mean after we have her we'll never be anything but parents again." I didn't get all cynical and sarcastic like I wanted to. (thats not the only thing you'll never be again!) I remember that excited anticipation.

That conversation got me thinking though. Its not just the enormity of being a parent that's amazing. What is really amazing is how your brain changes after becoming a parent. Now I look at playgrounds as death traps. Bathrooms as germ pits of doom. I care about school districts and music funding. I get angry at children who aren't mine for endangering their lives. I know what their mother will feel if they are hurt.

I have realized that mentally I'm a 60 year old man. "Get off that tree branch ya whippersnapper! You'll break your gosh darn neck!" And really I'm okay with it. I'll keep my babies (and yours) as safe as I can. I'll be a fat old bitch who cusses at children, but doesn't run them over because she drives so carefully when her own kids are in the car. I'm a mother. And that's what mothers do.