Vepro Knedlo Zeli

A couple of Sundays ago I made some pork, with sauerkraut, seasoned with caraway seeds and brown sugar.

(Salivating yet??  Thought so.  I knew you loved sauerkraut.)

It was one of those Czech dishes that took some time to acquire a taste for...that, and the water "with gas" to wash it down.


It's taken me 10 years to cook it myself.

My husband ate it.  And then had seconds.

Success.

As I was savoring those tender bites of cabbage in my mouth (still salivating, right?), a little, tiny part of me pined for days gone by.

It's been a little over a decade since I received a letter in a large, white envelope that would eventuate the change from "My Life" to "Zivot Muj."

(Yes, all this time my blog has had a blatantly unoriginal and bland title.)

A decade.

That's a lot of time.

I could have gone to high school three and a third times in that amount of time.  (Does anyone else wonder how high school managed to feel like a decade itself?)

I could have watched 10 years of American Idol (I've yet to manage to watch one--yes, one--episode).

I could have doubled my age from 10 to 20.  (Although a 50% increase isn't bad.)

But seriously,

As I sat there with my vepro-knedlo-zeli,

I thought,

What is there left to do??

I mean, of course there's still a lot to do.

But the flagship goals?

They're done, over and out:

Mission
College
World Travels
Starting a Career
Marriage
Foreign Adventures
Baby
Grad School
First Home

There's a quote from a classic movie that says something like,

"Someday we've got to stop saying when we grow up...we are up."

And as I sat there with my vepro-knedlo-zeli,

I thought,

So this is up?

Huh.

I thought I'd feel differently...

Maybe like a grown-up.

And so, as I sat there with my vepro-knedlo-zeli,

I came to the conclusion that,

Somewhere deep inside,

I will always be that soon-to-be 21-year old

Sitting anxiously with the white envelope,

Waiting to find out what her next mission will be.