I am my mother's daugher

I have this picture of my mom when she was a couple years older than I am now. My life has taken a completely different path than my mom's life did, yet that picture often reminds me how much the same we are.

In the picture, Mom is sitting on a couch. Several of us kids are sitting on the couch, too, with Chris in the front. Mom is smiling but, oh my, does she look older than she is. When the two of us look at the picture together, she always comments about how stressed she was at that time. Despite the smile, that was near one of the low points in Mom's life.

I went to play ultimate at Kris' work today. I haven't played in a good number of weeks, and haven't played pickup in years. As Kris reminded me at the end of the house, I had forgotten how to play pickup, which is to say, "with lots of breaks."

When you're on a practicing team, you usually have enough people to play, then rest a point or two. Certainly at a tournament, you run hard, then rest, run hard then rest. Unless, of course, you're playing savage, but that's a different style of play entirely.

So, I forgot how to play pickup. It happens.

At the end of the pickup game, I pulled out my camera and took a picture of Kris and I. Kris looks the same as he always does, perpetually 24.

I, on the other hand, look every bit my age. I look at this picture and think, Geez, my years have finally caught up to me. It's not a flattering picture.