Yesterday I watched most of both memorial service for President Reagan in DC and the evening ceremony in Simi Valley. I’ve been tearing up all day starting from Margaret Thatcher’s speech. I actually shed some tears when President Bush choked up and when the bagpipe played “Amazing Grace”. I lost it completely when Nancy Reagan went up to say goodbye one last time.

It’s hard to imagine what she has been through all these years, watching her beloved husband drifted away. It’s even harder to imagine going through all of these emotional ordeal in the eyes of the whole world.

It’s really strange how I feel. I feel a loss. Something of a passage in time…coming of age almost.

Reagan was the first US president I’ve ever known, even before George Washington. Actually, he was one of the first American things I’ve known. The other two being Elvis and Mickey Mouse. I guess I feel like his passing is a sign of time. I really am no longer a kid.

Imagine this. The next generation will never know the fear that we’ve felt during the Cold War. Sure they have seen 9/11, but it wasn’t anything like knowing that not only buildings getting blown up but the whole world obliterated by only a push of a button. I guess our parents are saying the same thing about how they felt during WW II, that we did have it easy.

I’m an adult now. Or perhaps I just feel old. “Kids these days” seems to be the phrase permanently purging on the tip of my tongue. New Wave music which never appealed to me before has become my new favorite along side the 90s grunge since there is not much on today’s radio.

I’m just getting old. And Reagan’s death is a milestone for me. From this point onward I can no longer be “a kid”. I have to take responsibility for my own life now.

Well…

Let’s make the last act of being a kid be my using baby girl tactic to get my dad to buy my plane tickets to Thailand. Hehe. 🙂 Then again, my parents are willing to spend that money to have me home. Eventually, I will NOT have them do that. But for now….