This morning I looked into the bread bag and out of the three slices remaining, I selected the single crust that was left, shunning the two symmetrically sliced middle pieces. (Or maybe just saving them for a proper grilled-cheese sandwich for later.) I toasted the crust, buttered and jammed it, then enjoyed every warm, delicious bite. And then I toasted myself with my coffee and said, “Here’s to growing up.”

When I was younger, much (much) younger than now, I was a cut-the-crusts-off-my-sandwich-or-I’m-not-gonna-eat-it kind of kid. It was an indulgence, I suppose, but my thrifty mother would have saved those cut-offs for the pan in the oven that held all the dried-out bread that would become breadcrumbs for some future delicious use like in hamburgers or fried chicken, which I would happily eat. (So, the joke was on me.) My defense at being a crust-shunner? That I don’t remember the first crust-less slice of toast placed before me – it was all I knew and then it became all I demanded.

[Philosophical side note: Why did I like buns, which are essentially all crust?]

As I got older, my toast and my sandwiches matured along with me. My mother, who still made my lunch for me all the way through high school, eventually stopped cutting off the crusts. And I dutifully ate them, but always first, saving the soft middle yumminess to savor last. Crusts didn’t kill me, but they weren’t my favorite. And then when I had kids, I started cutting off their crusts. I knew they were capable of eating them, I knew it was silly, but like the proverbial story of the cook cutting off the ends of the ham like her mother did, I repeated for my kids what my mother did.

I don’t think my kids have any crust baggage. Of course, being homeschooled and eating hot homemade lunches every day, they didn’t have years and years of school-sandwich torture either. (Reason #512 Why I Homeschooled My Kids)

Sandwiches don’t bother me anymore. (Unless they taste like they’ve been stored in a plastic lunch kit in a locker for 4 hours.) But then there’s a lot of things that don’t bother me anymore that I used to find distasteful. Or hard to do.

I keep my room clean. I wash my face every night. I eat fruits and/or vegetables at almost every meal. I wash the dishes. I turn off the TV and go outside. I work out.  I use sunscreen. I check the weather before I go anywhere. I wear a toque and don’t even care if it’s not cool because: Hey? I’m warm.

Sometimes I wish I’d done these things earlier in order to save myself some pain – like, I dunno, adult acne? (So much for the promise of outgrowing zits, the only thing that made the acne years bearable. “This too shall pass.” NOT.) Or I wonder if I would have been a more diligent worker-outer (well, it’s a word NOW) when I was younger, if I would find it easier and maybe would be, oh, I don’t know, slimmer?

The truth is, many lessons aren’t learned until life has smacked you upside the head a little bit or until you use up all those get-out-of-jail-free cards that come with youth, like a high metabolism or the ability to stay up all night to finish a project. Or the wherewithal to ignore the long-term consequences of wearing stiletto heels to hockey games or the detrimental effect on a bank account of buying so many beers at that same hockey game.

Growing up (or adulting, that chic new verb that used to only be a noun and sometimes an adjective) has a lot to do with making those connections between Now Me and Future Me. They’re the same person, it’s just that Now Me wants to have fun and doesn’t really give a crap about Future Me. Until it either starts to click or starts to hurt, which sometimes happens at the same time. Sometimes it’s a little click like: Eating the crusts on a sandwich will not kill me. Or a big hurt, like: If I don’t exercise everyday, depression might kill me.

I can’t do anything about Past Me, except to forgive her and love her, uneaten crusts and all. But I’ve got nearly fifty years to go in this journey of a century. I need to remind myself everyday that Future Me IS Now Me. It’s like retroactive love and forgiveness from the future. It might be a little boring, like walking on a treadmill to nowhere, but it works.