Age Freeze

Cristin thinks of me as a six year old.  I think of her as a sixteen year old with dangly confetti earrings.  When I think of Isabelle, my youngest sister, I think of her big, thoughtful two-year-old eyes.   My father is eternally in his thirties and my mother is forty.  So I am a bit surprised when they talk of retirement or senior citizen discounts when buying plane tickets.

Douglas' age is still current in my mind.  I think of him as the thirty-eight year old man he is today.

I associate certain people with a specific age permanently.  Age freeze.  I think of myself as twenty-eight.  Perhaps because my grandmother was hit by a van.  But that was also when I married Douglas and discovered pho in Vietnam.  I also had the best haircut.   

Yesterday my mother showed me a videoclip of Levi at three months old, wriggly and sweet.  I was both delighted by the surprise and disturbed that I vaguely remembered him being that helpless and drooly.

I kinda forgot what he was like at three months old.

How does that happen?  Why do we sometimes get stuck on an age?

I want to remember Levi as a newborn, a wriggle worm, a climbing toddler, a child and a teenager before he becomes an adult.

I want to have the ability to see him and respect him for who he is at any given moment.