Forty-Six
I am forty-six. I say it not as an indictment of the age, but merely as a fact. I can remember as a teenager when I realized that my parents were in their forties. I remember that, at forty, the aging process took hold. White grew at the edges of your hair. A certain sullenness set into newly formed creases. The home, your home, grew a little smaller, snugger, with accumulated items. There always were hurdles. Of course, as a teenager, I viewed the transformations through teenage eyes, undamaged, immature, reckless. Stress hung difficult on the house. I am forty-six now. My parents have walked through the valley that I find myself in now. I look in the mirror and recognize the white hair forming at my temples, blending into the colored hairs. Movement is sometimes painful. I walk through hours of stress, paying bills, robbing Peter to pay Paul. I don’t have any children now, but it only makes me understand how much more difficult rearing a child is. I look at my parents now no l