Last week while on vacation in Virginia I got to witness a phenomenon I have been unfamiliar with for awhile: the teenage girl. I mean, sure, I used to be one, but it’s been um, a long time. So I think it is safe to say I hadn’t been in that frame of mind for awhile.
Our best friends went with us on vacation, and their 14-year-old daughter Krisha brought a 16-year-old friend, Kierstin. I have spent quite a bit of time with Krisha, but to see two teens in action was really something. They stayed up ’til 2, slept ’til noon, had water fights, made brownies, and texted their brains out (many times to each other when they were two feet away.) They laughed and giggled and screamed and danced and always had one more thing to do before we could get out the door to go anywhere.
One morning, or actually afternoon, as they stumbled sleepily down the hall after nearly sleeping until lunch time, I felt a confusing pang of jealousy hit me like a hammer. Jealous? Why would I be jealous? “Who wants to go back to their teenage years?” I asked myself. “The angst, the hormones, the social jockeying, the identity crises? No thanks.”
Yet somehow, I couldn’t talk myself out of envying them. Maybe I’m viewing history with rose-colored glasses, but I remember my teenage years as being pretty carefree. I saw in Krisha and Kierstin the things I used to have and be and do (minus the texting) when I was their age. I miss the sleeping in, the eating whatever I want, the not having bills to pay. I love being a wife and a mother – the blessings God has given me are boundless – but at times I tire of having the weight of such an important responsibility on my shoulders. I can’t say I feel that way every minute of every day, but at that moment, the Fabulous Life of Krisha and Kierstin (which should tootally be a Disney Channel show) looked pretty darn good. I mean, I don’t want to shop at Hollister or anything but sleeping in once in awhile and not having a checkbook would be grreeeaat.
So. There it is. Another one of my numerous flaws. Anyone else wanna move back in with mom and dad and catch rides to the mall?
