Dying to be loved

In the big picture, popularity doesn't matter, right? Unless you wanna be head of the PTA or homecoming queen.

Then again...

When I had the girls, I had an almost automatic popularity. I was young, had three beautiful babies, and we were happy. It was almost too much. More like celebrity than popularity.

My neighbors love the girls. I wonder if I don't get a free pass sometimes because of them. 'Oh, so what if they only mow their yard once every two weeks and they never finished painting their deck! They have triplets! Did I ever tell you that they are the most adorable...'

Where am I going with this? Oh yeah. (I blame my idiocy on having triplets, too. It works for almost everything. Try it! 'I'm late for school - I have triplets.' 'I hit your grandmother with my Buick - I have triplets.' See?)

I wonder what will happen when the girls get old enough that they aren't a novelty for me. Coming from the mother that swore I would never refer to my children as triplets, this is a pretty strange comment, I know.

Will I not be popular? Not that I'm teeming with popularity right now, anyway, but you get the point. Will I fade into the background? I think that's why I feel an urgency to have a life outside of my children.

I think it's rather important. If I was ever to be on life support or just plain senile, would I have anyone there to prevent me from being voted off the island of life? Or would they just discontinue the meds and let me float away on a morphine drip? Would I have any friends crying at my funeral?

Or will I be rolling in the grave: 'I had triplets, damn it! That should count for something!'