So I'm tooling down the highway driving home from work, and The Go Gos come on the radio. "Our Lips Are Sealed." And I do what any other almost 36-year-old would do; I crank it up, and start singing at the top of my lungs. And then I cry. Yes, I cry. I'm sobbing with tears coming down my cheeks, probably unfit to drive. The song takes me back to when I was 12 more efficiently than any time machine could. I won the album that featured this song in a call-in radio contest -- Beauty and the Beat. I was on the cusp of adulthood and my whole life lay before me; and I was off to a lucky start wasn't I, with my big win? Who could even imagine what else lay ahead. This was one of those grown-up songs I was now listening to, having ditched my kiddie albums when I turned 11 and entered sixth grade. ("The Bunny Hop" wasn't so cool anymore when your savvier classmates were raving about Led Zeppelin.) But now I am 3 times that age -- 3 dozen years old. My 12-year-old self certainly would have thought I was old. Would she have been pleased with where I am and what I've done?

I can just remember being so anxious to grow up; so curious about what my future held. But now, at age 35 and 360 days, I know what my future holds. I am living it. And don't get me wrong, it is great in so many ways. But it kind of feels like Christmas afternoon; all of the presents have been opened, and there's that little wave of post-holiday sadness. The anticipation of the gifts is just as wonderful as the actual opening. And now, I feel like I've already opened the biggest gifts of my life. I got married. I had my children, established my career, and bought my house. All for which I am very grateful. But now, the wrapping paper is all balled up around me, and at best I might find a small surprise or two tucked under the tree. For the most part, the big events of my life have been discovered and unwrapped.

36 ... but who's counting?

I just can't reconcile how quickly time has passed. I've decided that I have time sickness; much like people get car sick because their brain can't reconcile how fast they're moving with what they're seeing, I feel a low level ague because life is passing me by faster than I can register. Is it just me?

My friend Lisa gets frustrated with this kind of talk. She doesn't feel this way at all. She claims I have a bigger problem with this passage of time than any of our friends. So now I only bring it up every third lunch date instead of each one. Surely that's progress.

I know she's right though, and I should try to have a more positive, "Hey, what's next?" outlook on life. I know that I have the gift of watching my children discover the big surprises that lay ahead in their life. I'm sure that will be great, just like watching them open their gifts now is more fun than opening your own. And I do hope to be part of the generation that redefines what getting old means. I want to be a "You go!" Granny, but I don't want to get there as quickly as I've been barreling down the time highway, no matter how great the songs are playing on the radio.

Amazing, isn't it? When you're 12 you'd give anything to be older. You spend hours dreaming about it. When you are older, you'd give anything to be young again. You spend hours remembering it. Now I know what all those adults meant when they'd shake their heads and say, "If I knew then what I know now." The question is, can I pass this life lesson on to my children? Convince them not to grow up so fast? Because before they know it, they'll be 36 and sobbing over a song from their childhood.

Lisa Scott lives outside of Buffalo, NY with her husband Patrick and their two children Jack and Riley. She co-anchors the morning and noon newscasts at the CBS affiliate. Lisa's a Yankee Doodle Dandy -- she was born on the 4th of July!
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