This weekend I got a call from a friend from college. We had a really nice conversation, but I left it feeling old. Her daughter just finished her first year of college. When did I get old enough to have a friend with a kid in college?
Yeh. Over the last 19 years, mush-for-brains.
As we talked, the conversation centered on her kids, her health, and her job. We talked a little about me - I did more listening this time. It was alright with me to do so. I was secretly pleased to hear of her health issues - that's one thing I did better than her! My health is good, hers is not so much. I know, I know...this is terrible of me to admit, and I certainly don't wish ill health on her and she hasn't had an easy life, by any stretch of the imagination. She is closer to the norm of a 40 something female in America at this time - divorced, overweight, single-Mom, lonely and looking for answers, working in an underpaid female dominated industry, and two of her kids are learning disabled. Scraping by in the economy, but rich in relationships. She embodies American society.
In this human form, in our western culture, it is very hard not to compare and compete. I am not the norm. I envy her conformity, in some ways.
It is hard to transition psychologically from being the hope for the future, to being the establishment. From being young to being old. From wishing and dreaming to remembering and sometimes regretting. From having endless possibilities, to living with the consequences of your choices (good and bad).
Nobody teaches you this in a real sense. This life down here is really hard.
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