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Grittier with age
Dec. 28th, 2007 10:54 amI'm halfway to my twenty-eight birthday, as of a few days ago. And, having seen a few younger-than-me folk lately, I just feel like I have to note that there is a critical difference between young twenty-somethings and older ones. Mostly, it's this: holding down a full time job, having moved out of your parents' umbrella.
If you haven't had a full time job, and household responsibilities to juggle -- without the ability to just go running home to mama -- you've missed out on a measure of discipline and strength. It takes grit and strength to make every deadline, to pay all the bills, and, if you fall down, to keep going through it. Sometimes you find you run out of energy; I have very little creative energy these days. But you do it because you have to.
I always used to wonder how new parents did it -- waking up at night for their new child, worrying about finances all the time, making time to schedule for play activities, figuring out meals, and still managing to stay sane. And, having ground through the routine of a job for a while, I think I've figured that parenthood, or adulthood in general, is mostly about this: you fulfill your responsibilties, alone if you have to, because there isn't another alternative.
It makes me sad to note that I feel that experiential difference with people I would've loved to have stayed up all night chatting with. It doesn't make time with them less fun, but I feel the difference, and I know I put my energy different places than they do.
Whenever I wonder what happened to the energy I used to have, the answer is pretty obvious. The energy goes to working regularly, even when I start to feel sick, like today. To giving constantly to clients, whether it was students when I was teaching or to clients now. And only after that to my own social life or the scattered fun I used to have.
If you haven't had a full time job, and household responsibilities to juggle -- without the ability to just go running home to mama -- you've missed out on a measure of discipline and strength. It takes grit and strength to make every deadline, to pay all the bills, and, if you fall down, to keep going through it. Sometimes you find you run out of energy; I have very little creative energy these days. But you do it because you have to.
I always used to wonder how new parents did it -- waking up at night for their new child, worrying about finances all the time, making time to schedule for play activities, figuring out meals, and still managing to stay sane. And, having ground through the routine of a job for a while, I think I've figured that parenthood, or adulthood in general, is mostly about this: you fulfill your responsibilties, alone if you have to, because there isn't another alternative.
It makes me sad to note that I feel that experiential difference with people I would've loved to have stayed up all night chatting with. It doesn't make time with them less fun, but I feel the difference, and I know I put my energy different places than they do.
Whenever I wonder what happened to the energy I used to have, the answer is pretty obvious. The energy goes to working regularly, even when I start to feel sick, like today. To giving constantly to clients, whether it was students when I was teaching or to clients now. And only after that to my own social life or the scattered fun I used to have.
