When the year 2000 really WAS the future....

So today I picked up my daughter from preschool, and she was more bubbly and excited than usual, which is saying something. As we walked out into the midday sun, she held her hand up to me and flashed a bright pink bauble. "See what Payton gave me? It's a ring!" she sighed as she admired the two-sizes too big plastic pretty on her finger. "He wants to marry me," she stated in a sing-song way, skipping beside me. I raised one eyebrow. "Really?"
"Oh yes," she answers, still admiring her new treasure. "And when Payton breaks up with me, I will marry Landon." For some reason, this stops me in my tracks, and the world seemed to tip just a little bit sideways.... As I stood in the middle of the preschool parking lot (not my safest moment, but whatever) the whole spectrum of time splayed out around me like a roulette wheel.
It seemed like just a few "late nights" ago that I first discovered Conan O'Brien. He kept me company while I wrote my term papers, painted my toe nails, and plotted out the map that would be my future. Or so I thought. Only the naivete' of youth kept me believing that I could plot my own destiny point by point. I would fall asleep to the the zaniness of Conan, and wake up feeling like the whole world was my oyster. Maybe it was, or maybe I wouldn't have known an oyster if it bit me on the butt. Whatever the case, at that place in time my life seemed so full of possibility it was absolutely bursting....And young Mr O'Brien seemed to be brimming with that same endless potential.... Everything was youthful and funny and unscripted and nobody could wait to see what would happen next.....
Fast forward a decade or so. Life, and Conan, had settled into a comfortable routine. For me, it meant husband, kids, job, minivan.....Conan was comfy in his own skin as well, combining a now hit show, new family, and the knowledge that one day he'd host the Tonight Show. Things plodded along as scheduled, everything was still funny and mostly unscripted, and when I slumped down on the couch at the end of a long day to watch "Late Night," I felt I was meeting up with an old friend. It held the kind of familiar continuity that a person wraps up in like a Snuggie....and takes for granted.
And now....my life is still plodding along as it should, except for the sudden reminders that fall out of the sky every day and smack me into paying attention - like the fact that my kids are growing so fast that I am going to blink twice and they'll be grown and be off plotting their own adventures. My little preschool princess will be trading in that pink plastic engagement ring for a REAL one....Our own little Sarah Killen (this is absolutely the newest pop culture item I have ever referenced...I feel all a "Twitter") As routine as everything has seemed so far, it has become more than apparent that life is just as unscripted and brimming with potential as it ever was. Anything can and will happen, no matter how hard I plan to the contrary. And as for my "old friend", he was shaken out of his comfort zone and dropped into a whole ocean of possibilities, ready or not. I am sure his future is feeling as open as it did back in those early, nervous, head-bobbing days of sport coats and jeans....and I am guessing he is loving every minute of it. There is nothing like being slapped in the face by life to make you remember you are still in the game....maybe not as youthful and naive as before, but with a lot more to lose, and therefore a LOT more to win. I suspect a lot of "win" in the future of Mr. O'Brien....and I myself hope to squeeze in a few more Barbie Tea parties before I have to start shopping for caterers....