A friend’s husband got up this morning at 4 a.m. to comfort their toddler, and returned with a glass of chocolate milk for her. She thought it was a little strange, but sweet; drank it down; and slept like a rock until her alarm went off. I can’t do the story justice, but it was hilarious when she told it.

From out of nowhere, I remembered a story from my childhood involving a strange, but sweet, gesture that completely blew up. I was either six or seven, and it was my parents’ wedding anniversary. I could think of nothing nicer to do than to serve them breakfast in bed, but the only think that I was allowed to make on my own was a bowl of cereal.

So at some ungodly hour (and yes, it was on a weekend), I got up and made cereal. I thought it would be romantic if my parents shared their breakfast — just like Lady and the Tramp and the spaghetti! — so I used an enormous white glass mixing bowl with blue roosters on the side (my mother’s favorite). I poured in Cheerios and milk to the top; added enough sugar to ensure a nice grey sugar sludge at the bottom; and popped in a couple of large spoons. I then proceeded to walk down the hallway to their bedroom, singing loudly and holding this very heavy mixing bowl full of milk and cereal. Which I dropped. Breakfast flew all over the carpet. I burst into tears. Let me tell you, nothing says “Happy Anniversary!” like a wailing child, a modern art installation of Cheerios, and a colossal mess at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning.

(While I wrote that last sentence with a fair degree of snark, it dawned on me that maybe — just maybe — it was true. That saying “Happy Anniversary!” means a little more than sitting down to a fancy dinner but encompasses good cheer, forgiveness, laughing at the preposterous, and uniting against a common foe. But I still think there are better ways to celebrate.)

I recently posted on Facebook a photograph of myself standing under the Arch at the University of Georgia, my beloved alma mater. My college friend Conley commented, “Seems like only yesterday or a century ago.” And that, my friends, has been one of the biggest surprises of aging for me: How much time has elapsed, and how quickly it is elapsing, and how the past seems both so far away and so near. (Since Conley would never mind a Faulkner detour, I will quote here from Requiem for a Nun: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”)

Midway through my life, I have crummy knees and laugh lines and joint pain and classic middle-aged vision. Today is my son’s 17th birthday. How can that be?  It just seems like yesterday that I was decorating a nursery and awaiting the arrival of my first child. But clearly, it was not just yesterday. It was 17 years of yesterdays — 6,205 days — ago. I still find this amazing, even though I am greeted every morning by an increasingly taller son with an increasingly deeper voice. I am hit over the head with constant reminders that time is passing, but it just does not seem possible.

While I know that I’m still 22 or 28 or even 35 (see the preceding paragraph), I don’t feel exactly like I’m 46, either. My mind has put together an amalgam of me — shiny hair, plump skin, small waist, unfurrowed brow — that may not be exactly true when I look in the mirror these days. But I do like how I feel: more confident, like a hell-on-wheels 22 year-old, much better suited to being young now than I was then. (I cannot underestimate the freedom caused by simply not caring as much for the things that don’t matter. Let it go, ALC! Let. It. Go.)

And I do like how little it takes to make me happy these days. I got a reminder of this on Wednesday, a day of perfect weather in Savannah, Georgia. Breezy. Bright blue skies. 70 degrees. I drove to lunch to meet my dear friend Julie (top down on the convertible, classic R & B on the radio); I had my favorite lunch at a table outside while the two of us talked and laughed. This was perfection! This was happiness! My 46 year-old self could ask for nothing more than this. But my 22 year-old self would have looked at this shiny moment not as a destination in itself, but as a lead-up to (supposedly) bigger and better things: a night out, dancing, loud music. It was nice to be in, and of, the moment, the incessant clock’s tick fading into the background.

I was overweight and doughy eight year-old, a fact that should hardly matter to my 46 year-old self. (What really should matter was my mother’s insistence on a series of very bad home perms — and her insistence that I looked just as terrific in some very loud plaid pants that seemed to magically grow in size to accommodate me for a number of years. Now THAT, my friends, is a legitimate grievance. But I digress.)  In my mind’s eye, I still see myself as being picked last for recess games — exception: Red Rover, because of my excellent properties as ballast — and as the slowest runner in the pack. As the years have passed, I have become a reasonably athletic adult and (even worse) one of those people who loves to exercise. Early in the morning, even.

I used to workout in gyms, until a series of increasingly bewildering brushes with male exercisers made me quit. The final straw was when I was jumping rope, and a man yelled, “double dutch!” — and tried to jump into the rope with me. I love men, and I love gyms, but I decided that the two were a terrible combination. Like home perms and really ugly plaid pants. So I workout at home now, and this morning I did one of my favorite DVDs.

Georges St. Pierre is a French Canadian mixed martial arts fighter. I understand that he is very good at what he does, which means that he is very fit and somewhat brutal and well-versed in pain. I have no doubt that in real life, Georges could look at me askance and I would cower in fear. But in this series of DVDs for the home exerciser — Rushfit — Georges (sounding for all the world like a buffed-up Pepe Le Pew) kvetches like he has never before held a weight or done a burpee. “This is horrible!” — or more accurately, “Thees is ‘orrible!” — comes from the man’s mouth frequently. He laments a lack of strength and a vexing muscle imbalance. Holding a squat for a minute seems to push him to the breaking point. And he assures us that this workout — five segments of five minutes each, with a minute’s rest — is just like a real fight. More accurately, Georges warns us that we have to pace ourselves: We may start like a lion, but end up . . . slow.

Every time I do this workout, I love it. When I’m not worrying about whether the on-set medic is going to have to attend to Georges, I’m admiring his grace, his ease of movement, and his joy. And I appreciate his willingness to pretend that we’re really accomplishing something here: hands up in guard, working on balance to avoid a leg sweep, learning how to sprawl so that we can pop ourselves right back up, holding on for just a little longer until the round ends.

A friend of mine once sent me a link to an article called (something like) “The Top 10 Female Bad-asses of Our Time,” with this explanation: They must have forgotten you! This ranks as one of my favorite gestures ever. I had visions of myself dropping ninja-style out of trees, cartwheeling through my foes, fighting my way out of trouble, morphing into Crouching Tiger, Hidden Amy Lee, becoming the plucky heroine of my own life.

And I think that this is why I like Georges. For that doughy eight year-old that seems to be lurking under the surface. For his foibles, whether real or imagined. For his strength. And for getting me in touch with my inner bad ass.