Missing the old me.....

As seems to be the trend this summer, we had an incredibly busy weekend...again. Saturday, we had an Earth Scouts swim party, followed by a friend’s daughter’s birthday party. Sunday was spent mowing the grass, cleaning the house, and grocery shopping. Sunday night, we went out to dinner and to a movie with friends. This morning I am back at work, feeling like I never left. How do the weekends manage to fly by so quickly?

I came to a rather interesting conclusion over the weekend. I have decided that, over the course of our long nearly 13-year relationship, Ruanita and I have changed. Yes, that is to be expected in a relationship. Everyone changes, right? However, the part that is interesting (and mildly disturbing) is the way in which we’ve changed. It appears that slowly…and without my conscious knowledge or intention…I have turned into Ruanita and she has turned into me. It’s true! When Ruanita and I first met, you would not believe how uptight she was. She was a woman of a routine….a place for everything and everything in its place. As a matter of fact, the first week we were together, I concocted a little experiment to test my hypothesis that she was the most anal person I had ever met. In the middle of the night, when she was fast asleep, I moved the canisters on top of her refrigerator. Just slightly….shifted them to the left. Would she notice? A “normal” person certainly would not have. However, to my surprise (well…not really), I found the canisters returned to their original spot the following day. My hypothesis was correct! Ruanita was the most anal person I had ever met! I, on the other hand, was much more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of girl back in the day. When I first moved to Minnesota, I did so with a barely-running pick-up truck, a box of CD’s, and $24 in cash. That was it. Those were all of my worldly possessions. However, I had no qualms whatsoever about driving my jalopy of a truck cross-country, confident in my assumption that all would work out. Perhaps I was naïve…or stupidly optimistic…but everything did work out. Just as I expected it would.

Today, however, is a different story. I am not the same happily optimistic person I used to be. As a matter of fact, I have become rigid…sarcastic…cynical….set in my ways. Perhaps it is age that is causing these changes in me. However, if aging is the culprit, then how do you explain Ruanita? Since we’ve been together, Ruanita has changed as well. However, she has become less cynical…less rigid….less pessimistic. Don’t get me wrong…she’s still firmly planted on the Negative Nelly side of the optimism/pessimism spectrum. However, the degree has diminished significantly. She’s moved much closer to the center. Situations that used to cause her to dissolve into a blob of curse words and oozing anger just roll off her back these days. I find that I am the one cursing and getting anxious and uptight.

Saturday was a day that nearly put me over the edge. I had planned an Earth Scouts swim party at Lake Nokomis….a time for the scouts to get together and just have fun. Unfortunately, all but two of my scouts were unable to attend because of previous engagements. However, I had every intention of making it a good time for my three kids and the two scouts who would be there. We got all of the kids dressed and ready…swim suits on, sand toys gathered up, lunches packed. We drove to Lake Nokomis only to find the lake was closed for an event of some sort. I could not turn to get back to the lake because there was a police car blocking the road and waving me away. I drove around the entire lake cursing….feeling my blood pressure rising with every mile we drove. Ruanita tried to calm me down. She made the mistake of trying to joke with me. I promptly growled at her to stop talking because she was only making matters worse. Yea…not really a good thing to say….she didn’t exactly appreciate being told to shut up. Finally, after much cursing on my part and disdainful silence on Ruanita’s part, I conceded that we would NOT be having a swim party at Lake Nokomis that day. We dragged our kids home, whining and screaming that they wanted to make a sand castle. I attempted to find the phone numbers of the other scouts’ parents. Of course, I could not find them, so I had to email them to tell them that the lake was closed and we would go to the wading pool at Wabun instead. All in all, the swim party was not a total disaster….though it started almost an hour later than planned. My two scouts were able to find us and the kids had a great time swimming.

After our swim party, we headed home, quickly changed our clothes, and headed back out again to go to a friend’s daughter’s 3rd birthday party. Unfortunately, Interstate 35W…the highway we take to get to her house….was closed. Rather than driving through downtown, which would have been the quickest alternative, I followed the detour signs. The detours took me much farther north (and east) than I needed to go......way out of our way. We ended up a half hour late for the party. Of course, I was cursing and grumping the entire time we were in the car. Again, Ruanita tried to calm me down. Again, I am pretty sure she regretted that decision. I swear…I think I have road rage issues. I am fairly certain that I am the only person in the Twin Cities metropolitan area that knows how to drive a car. Add to that the fact that I cannot stand to be running late, and Saturday was a day that nearly ended with me being hauled away in a straightjacket.

I don’t know at what point in the last thirteen years I turned into this weirdly anal, rigid person. I am sure it was a gradual progression, but it seems quite suddenly noticeable. Suddenly, Ruanita is the one who lets the kids pull the cushions off the couch and jump on them…and I am the one putting them back on and telling them to stop. Suddenly, Ruanita is the one letting the kids dig in the dirt and get filthy up to their ears…and I am the one asking them to please stay out of the mud and muck. Suddenly, Ruanita is the one who will leave clean clothes in a laundry basket and tell me, “It’s ok. They’re clean. We can dig what we need out of the basket.” I am one who can’t stand wrinkly clothes and is driven mad by the baskets of clothes sitting around. When did we trade places? When did we switch roles? What happened to that girl who laughed in the face of deadlines? That girl who thought all detours in life were an opportunity for a new adventure? That girl who rarely cursed, never wore a watch, and was always up for anything. She’s been replaced with a cynical, coffee-guzzling, neurotic, uptight, list-making, middle-aged (since the average life expectancy in 2010 is 77.9 years, I am pretty damn close to middle-aged) woman who curses at the drop of a hat and craves order and consistency and a well-constructed plan.

Man…I miss the old me.