While my thoughts on my last post were still swirling into irrelevance, I got a wonderful taste of what total crap that belief is thanks to everyone in my life over forty-five.
I have the lovely misfortune of still living at home due to my pathetic income and lack of ownership of my car, so I get to be here and watch all of the "grownups" that I know treat me like I am too young.
My realization here is that everyone immediately starts saying, "I was never that young, and even if I was, I was smarter/more responsible/more experienced/etc." Nevermind the fact that my parents and two of siblings were married in their early twenties. I'm clearly too young to be treated as the adult I legally am by the people who know me well enough to know how I behave and how smart I am.
I first started realizing this at my parents' church. After I graduated high school, I floated around interacting with the collage-age and grown-up people there, and realized I was going to just be caught between the youth group, which I was now too old for and no longer allowed to attend, and the grown-up things, which I was not considered part of because I was too young. This isn't really a problem when kids go off to JBU (as most of their children there do), and only come back once in a while until they've graduated and gotten married, but with me and a handful of others, when you're there and they can't remember whether or not you're out of high school, no one will take you seriously.
I can accept that from strangers at a church I only go to because of my living arrangements. They're not expected to know what I'm like. It's irritating, but a necessary evil. It's when people that do know better do the same crap that it pisses me off.
We are not children set loose in an adult world to explore and do as we will. About half the time, we are adults being denied the world we have earned. We aren't trusted to make our own decisions, and when we assert our rightful independence, it's looked on with condescension and/or disapproval. We get advice and admonitions rather than encouragement, because god knows we're idiot children and don't know any better.
They will never take us seriously or respect us as our own, intelligent, autonomous individuals, because they'll never think of us as adults or their peers, regardless of how old we are. Thirty-four, three kids, a career, and you'll still be "just a kid."
Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Sunday, July 14, 2013
We Are Children in an Adult World
Hello, Audience.
You know that scene in Yes Man where Zooey Deschanel is at a concert, and she calls all the fans by name? There's like five of them, and then the rest of the venue is totally empty except for like two guys at the bar? (My brain just filled in Wallace and Other Scott before I realized what it was doing)
That's kind of how I feel referring to my nebulous "audience." Somewhat silly, but I think it would be sillier still to actively address my posts to specific people, because then it would just be a total waste to post them like this. That's the kind of thing that should place as a conversation or email or something. And usually does. Besides, how awkward would it be to name specific people who may or may not actually read my posts? Just because they're following my blog doesn't mean they actually follow my blog.
But I was having a conversation this morning about the awesomeness of being this age. The girl I was talking to was telling me that she's going to dye her hair white-blonde, and this is the time she can do it without looking ridiculous, because right now, we twenty-somethings are old enough to do what we want and make our own decisions, but not so old that we're expected to act like grownups.
I think I act more like a child now at nearly twenty-two than I did when I was nine or ten. You know why? Because I can, and it's fun. I have all the energy and madness to be a child, and I have all the privileges and legal abilities of an adult. Plus some disposable income, which only means I get to play even more.
I know I've said all this before (especially here), but I'm periodically reminded, and it strikes me as kind of awesome every time. We don't get to stay in the middle forever, and presumably someday some of us will have to start behaving like functional adults (like in our late seventies, or when we die), but right now we have this enormous gift of being young without being children.
All of our stupid, wild decisions get written off as being idiot kids, and we have control and accountability for ourselves. So if I decide I want to slide off a roof (which was awesome) and twist my ankle (which was hilarious), that's totally up to me. And the people who slid before and after me.
I am at the age when I can go have a couple of beers and then go play on a playground. And I do.
So go do something juvenile and awesome, guys. And if you're too old for that, mourn your wasted youth. Because your life isn't complete until, as an "adult," you've ridden the side of a shopping cart through Wal-Mart singing spy music, or chugged a gallon of chocolate milk, or eaten cookie dough and raced down a roof.
You know that scene in Yes Man where Zooey Deschanel is at a concert, and she calls all the fans by name? There's like five of them, and then the rest of the venue is totally empty except for like two guys at the bar? (My brain just filled in Wallace and Other Scott before I realized what it was doing)
That's kind of how I feel referring to my nebulous "audience." Somewhat silly, but I think it would be sillier still to actively address my posts to specific people, because then it would just be a total waste to post them like this. That's the kind of thing that should place as a conversation or email or something. And usually does. Besides, how awkward would it be to name specific people who may or may not actually read my posts? Just because they're following my blog doesn't mean they actually follow my blog.
But I was having a conversation this morning about the awesomeness of being this age. The girl I was talking to was telling me that she's going to dye her hair white-blonde, and this is the time she can do it without looking ridiculous, because right now, we twenty-somethings are old enough to do what we want and make our own decisions, but not so old that we're expected to act like grownups.
I think I act more like a child now at nearly twenty-two than I did when I was nine or ten. You know why? Because I can, and it's fun. I have all the energy and madness to be a child, and I have all the privileges and legal abilities of an adult. Plus some disposable income, which only means I get to play even more.
I know I've said all this before (especially here), but I'm periodically reminded, and it strikes me as kind of awesome every time. We don't get to stay in the middle forever, and presumably someday some of us will have to start behaving like functional adults (like in our late seventies, or when we die), but right now we have this enormous gift of being young without being children.
All of our stupid, wild decisions get written off as being idiot kids, and we have control and accountability for ourselves. So if I decide I want to slide off a roof (which was awesome) and twist my ankle (which was hilarious), that's totally up to me. And the people who slid before and after me.
I am at the age when I can go have a couple of beers and then go play on a playground. And I do.
So go do something juvenile and awesome, guys. And if you're too old for that, mourn your wasted youth. Because your life isn't complete until, as an "adult," you've ridden the side of a shopping cart through Wal-Mart singing spy music, or chugged a gallon of chocolate milk, or eaten cookie dough and raced down a roof.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Some rambling about change
I've been noticing something lately, and it's another one of those stupidly obvious things that somehow surprises me.
Life is in a state of transition right now. And they're not big transitions, like moving, or changing something big like that, but they're noticeable when I start to look. People and places that are slowly sliding out of my life, and new ones that are appearing in their places.
I went with my little sister to my old high school back in August or September, and it kind of sucked, but that was one of the things it took for me to realize that it had no place in my life anymore, except as a memory. The people I knew aren't there anymore, and I really have neither desire nor reason to go there or talk to anyone.
I wonder if that's what getting old is like...You notice how a lot of old people kind of shut down? Stop going places and stuff. Obviously part of that is just that they're start losing all the energy and capability of youth, but I think some of it is just how unfamiliar one's world can become.
Anyway, the same sort of thing happens with my stuff. I have an obscene amount of junk, and I've been slowly working on getting rid of it over the past year or so, and some of it just gets lost, or thrown out, or given away in the course of time. That's how things are supposed to be, I think. You have to get rid of some things to make room for others, or to de-clutter. Letting go is a necessary part of things.
Part of me wonders what I might be losing as the current carries me away from things--or carries them past me--but it also means something different is taking their place. And I have some strange obsession with moving. I don't like to sit still, and I don't like things to stay the same. I like the adventure of new, even if I don't necessarily always think it through or entirely enjoy it.
One of the coolest things someone has said to me was last summer or so. I was talking to Rosalinde, and he said, "No adventure is 100% perfect, or happy, or wonderful all the time. It's inherent to adventures that they're dirty and grimy and uncomfortable, and have some really suckish parts. They'd be boring without them."
Which is slightly off my original point, but it's what I mean underneath that.
You know those screen-savers that looked like tangled thread? The twisting fractals that changed color and stuff? If you slowed one of those down enough that you could watch every movement, that's kind of what I think life would look like. Or maybe stone is a better comparison. It changes slowly, but it alters the entire landscape, and one day, a few thousand years later, it's an entirely new place.
Anyway. Just some things in my head today.
Life is in a state of transition right now. And they're not big transitions, like moving, or changing something big like that, but they're noticeable when I start to look. People and places that are slowly sliding out of my life, and new ones that are appearing in their places.
I went with my little sister to my old high school back in August or September, and it kind of sucked, but that was one of the things it took for me to realize that it had no place in my life anymore, except as a memory. The people I knew aren't there anymore, and I really have neither desire nor reason to go there or talk to anyone.
I wonder if that's what getting old is like...You notice how a lot of old people kind of shut down? Stop going places and stuff. Obviously part of that is just that they're start losing all the energy and capability of youth, but I think some of it is just how unfamiliar one's world can become.
Anyway, the same sort of thing happens with my stuff. I have an obscene amount of junk, and I've been slowly working on getting rid of it over the past year or so, and some of it just gets lost, or thrown out, or given away in the course of time. That's how things are supposed to be, I think. You have to get rid of some things to make room for others, or to de-clutter. Letting go is a necessary part of things.
Part of me wonders what I might be losing as the current carries me away from things--or carries them past me--but it also means something different is taking their place. And I have some strange obsession with moving. I don't like to sit still, and I don't like things to stay the same. I like the adventure of new, even if I don't necessarily always think it through or entirely enjoy it.
One of the coolest things someone has said to me was last summer or so. I was talking to Rosalinde, and he said, "No adventure is 100% perfect, or happy, or wonderful all the time. It's inherent to adventures that they're dirty and grimy and uncomfortable, and have some really suckish parts. They'd be boring without them."
Which is slightly off my original point, but it's what I mean underneath that.
You know those screen-savers that looked like tangled thread? The twisting fractals that changed color and stuff? If you slowed one of those down enough that you could watch every movement, that's kind of what I think life would look like. Or maybe stone is a better comparison. It changes slowly, but it alters the entire landscape, and one day, a few thousand years later, it's an entirely new place.
Anyway. Just some things in my head today.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Fridge, a Thing of Beauty and Evil
So I was fridge diving the other day, and it occurred to me that there's a tragic curse on me and my siblings that resides in our refrigerator. I had to divide it into separate parts, though, in order to explain this adequately.
First, let me define "fridge diving" for you. It's a term I coined a few years ago because there was no other phrase to describe what it was that I was doing. Fridge diving is a last resort starvation technique, like eating cheese with salad dressing on it (Caesar and chedder, guys. I promise.). It's when you open the refrigerator, stare, close, repeat, and then after three or four times throw random things together and then consume it. Not always delicious, but usually edible, and it shuts that annoying hunger thing up effectively.
And as an added bonus, it usually looks a little like vomit after I melt cheese and put ranch on it, so no one wants to steal any! :D
The thing that makes fridge diving possible is what I like to call the "over forty fridge." It's a phenomenon common among grownups raised with a semi-Depression-era mindset, which is presumably because their parents were raised during the Depression and following years. The fridge is always packed, and there's usually a layer of things that you don't question or move, because they've been there long enough to become simply part of the refrigerator's landscape. There's also frequently nothing to eat in the clutter. Which is how I end up snacking on things like cheese and mustard or eggs and ranch. It's all condiments and compliments for food, but no actual noms.
So in addition to the regular, mysterious, nonfood occupants to the fridge, I come from a ginormous family, which is all well and good, but the problem here is that we all still cook for between six and ten people. There's only five people living in this house (myself, my sister, my brother, and my parents), so there's constantly leftovers. In some houses, this isn't a problem, but my family isn't especially fond of eating leftovers, particularly when that's what we've eaten the day before. Add to that the fact that we're all a little leery of eating anything of dubious goodness, having at one point or another taken a swig of milk or bite of something only to discover it's flown right past the point when it ought to have been thrown out.
The reason that we end up with old things in the fridge is usually that we're all procrastinators. Cleaning out the fridge is no one's favorite job, so we all wait until it gets really atrocious and Becca's culinary OCD takes over.
This is one of the many reasons I take comfort in knowing that my house will never be that way. Because I obviously have nothing to do with the cyclical problem here...
Anyways. This took far too long, and I shall now go finish cleaning in my evil room. (Both in the fact that it is a thing of evil, and in that it's a room for being evil...Or something. Now I need to have the Evil Room right next to the Angry Dome. Maybe it'll be my studio in my future awesome house.)
First, let me define "fridge diving" for you. It's a term I coined a few years ago because there was no other phrase to describe what it was that I was doing. Fridge diving is a last resort starvation technique, like eating cheese with salad dressing on it (Caesar and chedder, guys. I promise.). It's when you open the refrigerator, stare, close, repeat, and then after three or four times throw random things together and then consume it. Not always delicious, but usually edible, and it shuts that annoying hunger thing up effectively.
And as an added bonus, it usually looks a little like vomit after I melt cheese and put ranch on it, so no one wants to steal any! :D
The thing that makes fridge diving possible is what I like to call the "over forty fridge." It's a phenomenon common among grownups raised with a semi-Depression-era mindset, which is presumably because their parents were raised during the Depression and following years. The fridge is always packed, and there's usually a layer of things that you don't question or move, because they've been there long enough to become simply part of the refrigerator's landscape. There's also frequently nothing to eat in the clutter. Which is how I end up snacking on things like cheese and mustard or eggs and ranch. It's all condiments and compliments for food, but no actual noms.
So in addition to the regular, mysterious, nonfood occupants to the fridge, I come from a ginormous family, which is all well and good, but the problem here is that we all still cook for between six and ten people. There's only five people living in this house (myself, my sister, my brother, and my parents), so there's constantly leftovers. In some houses, this isn't a problem, but my family isn't especially fond of eating leftovers, particularly when that's what we've eaten the day before. Add to that the fact that we're all a little leery of eating anything of dubious goodness, having at one point or another taken a swig of milk or bite of something only to discover it's flown right past the point when it ought to have been thrown out.
The reason that we end up with old things in the fridge is usually that we're all procrastinators. Cleaning out the fridge is no one's favorite job, so we all wait until it gets really atrocious and Becca's culinary OCD takes over.
This is one of the many reasons I take comfort in knowing that my house will never be that way. Because I obviously have nothing to do with the cyclical problem here...
Anyways. This took far too long, and I shall now go finish cleaning in my evil room. (Both in the fact that it is a thing of evil, and in that it's a room for being evil...Or something. Now I need to have the Evil Room right next to the Angry Dome. Maybe it'll be my studio in my future awesome house.)
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