I feel like I’ve been alive long enough to know a few things. Mainly old enough to know that I don’t know anything.
I have had some realizations, though. I understand that human nature is unkind and unbearable. People repeat the mistakes of our parents and sometimes those of their parents.
When I was younger, I often heard from adults, “When I was a kid, we had to …” I swore I would never dismiss others like that. Every generation has struggles. Instead of trying to make light of what people are going through
Young people are going through trauma and suffering, so don’t dismiss their struggle by trying to make our fight more critical. We should show a little empathy.
I biggest issue I see with generation gaps, it that older generations lose touch with their struggle and joys from their past.
You are not in competition.
When I was a child, the diet culture was just getting started. You probably can’t imagine telling a 5-year old that they have fat thighs, or they would be cuter if they would suck in their stomach. When I hear anyone saying that they would be attractive or healthy if they didn’t have THIS or THAT. I want to hug them and let them know that they are a beautiful soul inside of that body.
I try to put myself in the shoes of the others. When I see a person enjoying something that didn’t exist when I was younger, I want to understand the joys not dismiss them because they aren’t my past joys.
When I see the fashions and trends of today, I try to remember some of the awful trends of my youth. I try to understand that both joy and pain are subjective. I believe that people are entitled to their own experiences. Who am I to say what brings them happiness – even if I find the sound of most auto-tuned singers to drive me to a violent eye-roll.
We are all a dying breed. We impart our beliefs and hope for the best.
I am old enough to know that I am not old enough.
I am at that age where I can’t be that outrageous older woman who watches Rick and Morty, with wildly colored hair in her funky Converse, and smoking that pre-roll of Cinderella99 with the soundtrack of her youth floating around her.
It seems like instead of that woman, I am more of that weird woman that watching silly tv and smokes too much weed.
Mamma told me it takes courage and strength to be who you are. Well, I am a weird woman. I know the choice I made years to embrace my weird was the right thing to do. I chose not to have a “normal” life, for the strength, I am grateful.