A funny thing happened on the way to my life

It seems life has been throwing me some curve balls lately. And try as I might, I'm striking out left and right.

The saying goes, when life throws you lemons, make lemonade. What if the lemons are spoiled? Between all the balls and lemons, I'm not really sure what to do anymore, but sit back and watch from my lemonade stand while I get pelted by balls. And I'm not talking about the fun ones.

As this new year has been pretty shitty, I find myself obsessively thinking about, well, everything. In particular, my kids. It all started with a gravity bong and the movie Knocked Up. Between freakouts of the beauty and ickiness that is the miracle of birth, I kept thinking about how I did that. I created life. Now I am bound to that life. At least until the 18th birthday, which has been deemed to be an "adult" age.

The more I see them grow and mature, the more it weirds me out that one day they'll be my age and doing the things (hopefully not) that I do. You'd think I'd be used to the fact that I have kids by now, being that its been ten and a half years, but I'm not. I fear I will never feel "normal" about the whole situation. Especially the more pivotal events become as they get older. The genius is already talking about getting married and having children. It was in jest due to my consternation at becoming a grandmother before I'm 35. He's such a smart ass...I wonder where he gets it from.

Then this weekend I attended and was a part of my good friend Jessica's wedding. I teared up when they said their vows. I cried a little when the speeches were given. I sobbed when they had their first dance as husband and wife. But the thing, the main thing that got me was the mother/son dance. I couldn't contain myself. I just kept thinking that that was going to be me one day. Dancing with my son at his wedding, assuming he chooses that path. At that point, the weirdness hit me again. To think, we do this everyday. Give birth. Nurture that baby to childhood, their teens and then adulthood. The gravity of life is surreal as it is to me, add that to developing a self-sufficient, independent person and you've got a weirded out Mal.

Now as I sit here at almost 2 in the morning not sleeping and probably not making any sense, I guess what I'm trying to say is the gratification of helping to develop an individual does not outweigh the oddity that is real life. Maybe I could have said that in fewer, less confusing words, but then I wouldn't be able to regale you with my many eccentricities.

When does the surreal end and the conscious awareness begin?