As I was driving home today, the warm sun shining through the windows, the drone of the wheels providing a dull rhythm to the journey, I fought to keep my eyes open.

It’s not that I stayed up so late last night, or got up that early this morning.  It’s just that after lunch nothing sounds better than taking a nap. 

When I was a child and my mother said anything that sounded like “nap”, we kids would all run as fast as we could the other direction.  So when did this change?  When was it that sleep went from being a punishment to being a reward?

I mean, if someone today yelled at me and demanded, “Go to your room right now and don’t come out for two hours!” I’d think I’d died and gone to heaven. 

Oh, darn, I guess I’d have to go lay down and close my eyes for two hours, no cooking, cleaning, laundry, phone calls, pleas for help with homework.  Just the quiet of my refuge.  Just thinking about it makes me shutter.

I started thinking about all the other things that are opposite from when I was young.

I used to think that taking a bath was a waste of time; now it’s a luxury.  I mean, my mom would send me upstairs to take a bath and I would actually turn the water on, splash it around so she’d think I was in it, splash a little in my hair to authenticate my ploy, and sit in the bathroom long enough to not arouse her suspicions.  I look back with amusement now … I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me that watching a bathtub fill with water was far less fun than actually being in it.

I thought that the news was boring; now I devour the newspapers daily.  Back then “Leave It To Beaver” seems like reality and the news was a foreign language.  But adults have a hunger to know what’s real, what’s going on in our world, no matter how bad it might be.  So the sitcoms now provide an escape from reality instead of representing it.

I used to love scary movies.  That feeling of overwhelming fright was so exhilarating, I guess because our innocence prevented us from realizing bad things could happen to us.  I really don’t like being scared anymore.  I’d rather take a nap.

I used to be able to ride the wildest rides at the amusement park and beg for more.  Now I have a headache after the first one.  I’m becoming one of those people who say, “No, you go ahead; I’ll wait for you here.” 

We were told to “finish everything on our plate” as children.  We were taught that good boys and girls would grow up big and strong if they eat all their food.  Now we refrain from doing that very thing.  We’ll get fat if we do.

We loved riding bicycles, playing chase, going to the roller rink.  Exercise was not called exercise; it was called having fun.  Now walking to my mailbox is still fun, but anything further is exercise, which is a nice word for work.

Going to the grocery store used to be an adventure; eating sugar straight out of a spoon tasted great; wheat bread tasted gross, salad was worse.  Going barefoot was normal; clowns were really funny; dogs didn’t seem to smell bad.

So when did I get this old?  I don’t know, but I’m tired of thinking about it.  I think I’ll go take a nap.