The Golden Age

Getting older is a mixed bag.  

There are many things from my more tender years that I would hate to revisit today.  I am glad not to be a subject in my parents’ kingdom, now free to do as I please.  I am thankful not to have nightly homework assignments.  Although I really loved school and enjoyed the challenge I found in most of my classes, it took me a long while to get used to being untethered each evening.  For at least a year after finishing graduate school I would continue to feel guilty going out “on a school night” or staying up late to watch a classic movie.

I also do not miss the angst of youth.  There were so many events in those days that seemed like life and death situations.  Did a certain boy call when he promised? Did I get an A on the big exam?  Why is this person not speaking to me?  Did my parents find out what happened at the party?  When would I be able to get my driver’s license?  I remember getting physically ill when my mother refused to buy me a certain pair of fashionable shoes.  

As an adult, you learn very quickly what “important” means.  There is nothing like the fear you experience when your baby’s heart stops—twice—during active labor.  Or when your home catches fire.  Or when your teenager lies unconscious after a dramatic seizure.   There is the uncertainty that looms while you wait to connect with loved ones after a giant earthquake.  Or 9/11.  These are the things that make you look back and laugh at the folly of youth.  They make you wish for those simpler times when matching a shade of eyeshadow to your dress was the order of the day.

There were things about being young that were truly exciting.  I remember lying awake in bed on many nights realizing that so much of my personal journey was still before me.  I remember thinking how exciting it would be to play the college lottery, knowing that events beyond my control would determine so much about my future.  There were people who would figure prominently in my life that I had not met.  Those relationships would determine my career, my children, and other important aspects of how my life would unfold.  It was a thrill to know in my heart that the best was yet to come.

But even those youthful musings did not prepare me for the joy that comes from the personal fulfillment of adulthood.   When I stood to have my degrees conferred chills shot down my spine and sparks flew out my fingertips.  When I held hands with my husband to join him in matrimony I felt like we were blasting off to explore the universe.  When I began my first professional job, bought our first home, gave birth to our first child—these were events that I could never have imagined as a young girl.  Each was a game changer that forever transformed life as I knew it, sending me into another dimension further removed from my origins.  Further from the child I used to be.  

I would not know how to function as a youth in today’s world.  Kids today face perils that seem infinitely more dangerous than the demons of our youth.  We were once threatened that certain “behaviors” would bring embarrassing diseases; today’s kids face deadly ones.  There are predators that target kids in their own yards, as well as on computers in their own homes.  People date without meeting in person.  There is no true privacy. Even being American is no longer something we can count on.  The world does not admire us.  The economy, homeland security, and our political systems are built on a house of cards. We are not “indivisible.”  Justice does not extend to “all.”  Ours will not be a generation that leaves things better for our children.

On the other hand, I envy kids for youth itself.  Although I am thankful to be relatively healthy, age has plagued me with osteoarthritis.  I no longer have a vessel that can keep up with my flights of fancy.  I live more and more in my head, in my stories, and in my music.  I long to have mobility and endless stores of energy.  I long to return to college to try the path not taken.  I long for the naïveté of innocence.  

Instead, I have the spoils of my generation.  My computer fits in my purse, and my phone tracks me across every continent.  I can look up the meaning of a book before I read it.  I can watch a war on television real-time.  I can Google the difference between further and farther.  I can see what my daughter’s college friends look like.  I can find the best price on a Kohler faucet and have it delivered at no charge the next day.  Everything today is more timely, more accurate, and more efficient.  

But where is the mystery?  As much as my childhood was silly, simple, and self-indulgent, it was a childhood.  I was free to use my mind to wander, to explore, to dream, and to wish.  It was not a waste of time or opportunity, it was the job description.  And it was the best job I ever had.