My mother says I walked, talked and was toilet trained far ahead of schedule. I frankly don't remember any of it, but it makes sense. I was 30 years old when I was born.
I remember running off math quizzess on the stencil machine for the teacher in second grade wondering what one of those things cost and whether I could undercut the Buffalo Courier Express by putting out my own newspaper.
In the midst of the big David Cassidy/ Donny Osmond fourth grade debate - I was really into rock of the igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic type. I still get a little sentimental about Moh's Scale of Hardness.
I put a bunch of Teen Beat posters on my wall and left them there for years, sneaking historical biographies under the covers often reading through the night -- not only imagining myself in their place but wondering how they paid the bills and what things cost.
I started working at 15 and didn't drink until I was 18 (then the legal age). The only thing that ran wild was my imagination.
I was a worrier -- a world-class worrier -- in a hurry to match my chronological age to my mental age and have bestowed upon me all the power and order that would come with adulthood.
I graduated from college early, married too young and threw myself completely into evey job I took.
When I consider how annoying and intense I was, it's amazing my relatives still speak to me. (It helps a lot that I was out of town for 24 years).
Over the last decade I started combining vacations with work trips until I was ready to actually take obligation-free runs (as long as they had internet access and I had my lap top).
Something finally snapped with the return of the E-Street Band a few years back. I covered one of their shows in college for the school paper, but had to leave before the encore to process my film. There were dozens of other chances missed because of work obligations and finances. By the time I finally saw a Springsteen show in Austin, Bruce was married to a model and Clarence and Max were the only E-Streeters on the stage. On my feet for the Detroit Medley encore, I "danced" holding the dead weight of my sleeping-three-year old daughter. It was not what I had imagined.
When Little Steven and the gang came back, I was finally ready to run. As befitting a major life passage, my husband, daughters, brother and friends were there for the first show in Buffalo. The rest were of the shows I aw that tour were scattered all over the map, enjoyed with various combinations of brother, husband, friends and even a vendor in San Francisco.
When my brother said the Springsteen/ Seeger tour was coming around I said yes without hesitation. I'm taking a half day off from work tomorrow to head to Cleveland with the top down -- the stereo blaring and my husband, brother and a friend rounding out a middle aged quartet. Appointments can wait. Clients will be covered ably in my absence.
We're all born to run. Some of us just start the race a little later than others.




Copyright 2006 Judi Griggs