So our family is in full gear of the travel season with the camper and recently we joined to other families to the beach over the weekend. It was a great chance to experience other families in their own camping or traveling element, especially since they have kids in their preteens and teens. Since everyone got along wonderfully, it gave me a chance to do my favorite introvert past time……observing.

With our punkin’ being a preschooler, it’s easy to observe other families, especially with older kids, as the older folks. Let’s not do the math shall we, but it seems like yesterday this Gen-Xer felt like the world saw me as this:

(now the only thing I am in wonder and fury is the maniacal ravings of a three year old)

But lately I feel like the youth see my husband and I like this:

When did I lose my punk girl? That girl was always on the pulse of the next big thing, now she’s looking at comfortable shoes with a gleaming eye. But, she’s still in there, slamming against the wall that separates her from living out her dreams, and being…..me.

Back to the camping trip—

So here are the adults, enjoying their cocktails and sangria under a canopy on the beach, watching the kids down the beach, looking for shark teeth and playing baseball. There was the usual sophmoric flirting between the cute girl down the beach with the son of on of our friends, which became more topic of conversation for us “folks” under the canopy. Then, I realized the stark truth as we sat there teasing the boy-we had become those adults who embarrass the kids. I cringed, thinking of my own experiences in my family, singling me out to a cute waiter at dinner, or the lifeguard at the pool.

Night brought campfires and watching a race on the TV outside the camper (we folks love our toys too). The race went on too long for us to sacrifice precious older folks sleep so we called it a night. One of the kids was visably upset, especially when his mom put the fire out. I went inside and thought about how kids still do see us at cool, until we pull an old folks move like calling it a night early.

Then we start to look to them like this:

Cause you only get a small window to still be a rockstar in a kid’s life, before life and life’s choices turn you into the “old folks.”

It’s so cool I have an even bigger window with our punkn’, to show her the punk rock girl is still in my heart and soul, fighting to bring her back out and riot. Only this time with all the folk wisdom I gained along the way….