Jun 15, 2007

Independence

I'm still getting over the excitement of the day that I realized I could eat my dessert before my meal and nobody would stop me. I remember it distinctly. I was sitting in the cafeteria of Pierce Elementary School eating my sandwich and realized that the lunch duties probably wouldn't catch me if I were to just eat my cookies first. A few months later, I realized that the lunch duties probably wouldn't care even if I was caught. A few years later, I actually tried it. It was satisfying to flout convention and even more satisfying to flout what my mother had told me to do when I first started school. The novelty wore off after a few times and I realized how much more satisfying it is to save the dessert.

Most of life is either unsupervised or supervised by people that don't care what you do as long as you don't hurt anyone else. Especially this time of life. No attachments. No responsibilities to anyone other than self. And this world offers so many options. But when it comes down to it, generally what my mother says ends up being the best way.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

there are reasons we save the best for last, it is just so much more enjoyable to find a morsel of chocolate chip cookie tucked between your gums and cheek during recess than turkey sandwich...at least that was always my rational. but hey, to each his own

Anonymous said...

It sometimes pisses me off how often my mother is right. Especially when it's something I don't find out until years later...I find yourself thinking something or doing something and I realize, although I may have been denying it for most of my life, that my mom had it right all along. How terribly annoying.

Laura