Last week my childhood bff posted pictures of her daughter going to her prom. She looked beautiful, just like her mom. But how could she be at her final year in high school if it feels like being that age wasn’t that long ago for me? How can all these other people be getting older if I’m still young?
This year will be my 30 year high school reunion, so I guess my own senior year wasn’t just yesterday. I get that. But how could 30 years have gone by since that time? I hadn’t even lived for 30 years when I got that diploma…. and I felt so grown up then.
Am I going crazy or stepping in time warps on my way to the mailbox each day?
Back then I remember trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Now I’m in my mid-40’s still trying to figure it out. Granted, I had a 20 year career run in the interim, so am now moving on to a second career…. but still.
Back then I viewed my parents as adults. Not old – but grown-ups. Though when I graduated from high school they were younger than I am right now. What?! I am certainly not old enough to have a “me” from back then as a kid right now.
Back then I viewed someone in their 60’s or 70’s as old – grandparent age. But now that I look at my own parents in that age bracket and realize how young that really is. My parents are just not hitting their prime! I see them as middle age. So what would that make me?
I see myself as a young adult. I would be right at home in the Judy Bloom section of Barnes and Noble. Old enough to be wise, and responsible to support myself. Young enough to still honestly see cookie dough as a viable breakfast food.
Maybe not having had kids of my own skews time a little. I’ve never watched human children every day under my roof getting taller and moving from grade to grade. My furry kids change, sure, but somehow it doesn’t reflect the same onto how old that would make me.
Heck, I still feel like a kid. Last weekend we all met up at my parents’ house and my brother was spear-heading a clean-out of all the things they shouldn’t need to keep around anymore.
He came across our old box of building blocks and Fisher-Price people, then dumped them all out on the porch to see if there was anything hidden in there we wanted to save. Let the fun begin!
I spent the next hour having the best time building an open floor plan home, and furnishing it with Fisher-Price village beds, tables, chairs, cars, and the swing from their tree house. I set up all the little people with their plastic snap-on hair all around their new digs. It was completely relaxing and so much fun that I can’t believe we waited this long to play with it again.
Of course that led to my mom not wanting to get rid of it and my brother probably regretting making this spring cleaning a family affair.
It made me think about two things.
First, maybe not having kids enables us to still feel like the kids in the family ourselves.
Second, I hope that not having kids doesn’t deprive my own parents of the experience of being grandparents. Hopefully all their grand-dogs manage to fill that gap. And if not, I will volunteer to come over more often to play with those blocks again.
My husband has three boys but they were already double digit age when I met them all, so they kind of came already assembled as grown up to some degree. They also live out of state which takes away the chance of my consistently seeing their changes as a barometer of my own aging.
My thoughts swing back to the paradox of age.
When I was prom age, it felt like all the people in my generation were “the” age to be. After all, this was where all the action was. This was where life was filled with friends, fun, and a blank canvas to create “my life” to be whatever I could dream of. And I saw parental age folks as, well, they already had their chance for the fun time in life, and now they were content to be in supporting rolls in the newer story of the lives of their children.
Now I’m the one that age. I look back at that younger age and, though I feel a bit envious of the untarnished canvas with nothing but time ahead, I also feel relieved I don’t have to deal with all the insecurities and unknowns of that period. And I get tired too early now to have the energy for just starting a night out at 10:00 pm.
You begin to realize that when silver haired grandparents told you “I used to be that young”, well what do you know, they really must have been! Which swivels your thoughts around to how mind-blowing it is to think we all will undergo that level of change, to where someday, we will be the silver haired one telling some yet-to-be-born being about what our life is like right now…..
I’m glad to be in the head-space I am in now, where I accept myself for who I am, imperfections and all. And I feel like I’m just now hitting my stride. Like all the other life experiences in my past were building blocks to get me to this very point I stand at today.
I feel like I am still the main character in the story of life. Not a background person because I am older. I’m still the leading lady – the heroine. And I’m just beginning this new chapter of the story of my life.
Sure, my canvas has already been drawn on. And it had seemed pretty complete. Like I was done.
But then I turned the canvas over and it had a new blank side on the back! Like a second chance to decide what you want to be when you grow up. But this time with an improved inner knowing of who that really is. And this time having only myself to prove something to.
After all, why should any of us be limited to being only one thing in life? There are so many interesting and exciting adventures, avocations, and vocations to choose from – why shouldn’t we all get to choose a variety plate that allows us to taste multiple options that we might want our lives to look and feel like?
I guess we all feel like the main character in our own stories, regardless of age.
And if we’re lucky, we keep finding new things that we like to try and do so that it always feels like the place we’re standing is “the” place to be.
And I guess age is more of a relative idea than a concrete absolute.
Maybe the key is to change our perspective to one where there is no definable line separating young from old. Just varying degrees of “quite young” to “less young”. Older, but never old.
And to never see anyone as being older enough that their life has become less significant than any other younger life.
Because only then can we see ourselves as Ever-Young. And living exactly where it is the best, and most enjoyable, for us to be –
right at this moment….. and always.