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The Goddess Speaks
Firmly planted
in middle ageI don't remember growing older ...The words to this poignant song from the "Fiddler on the Roof" haunt me. Our eldest son married this month in California in an outdoor ceremony evoking images of marriages throughout the centuries. Including my own 30 years ago.
When did they?
Sunrise, sunset.My son seems so young, yet my husband and I were younger and thought ourselves very mature, well prepared to face the world. Armed with love, college degrees and optimism, we had far less going for us than our son and his new bride. They have jobs, a house, two cars, 401k plans and a wealth of knowledge. Now they have each other.
I have to admit that we are the parents of adult children, which plants us firmly in middle age. Those in our generation suffer Grandparent Envy. Not many suffer Job Envy for the long hours and high stress our offspring face. We're gladly turning over the world to the next generation.
They welcome the future. My optimism flourishes, based on the young people I know. No sooner did we return to Hawaii than my computer fizzled, and I was bummed because my personal techie was on his honeymoon. He is only one of the X Generation on whom I rely. My niece did my hair before the wedding. A friend's son, Sam, at The Steady Wrench, keeps our bikes working. The "children" are teachers, lawyers, stage managers, computer analysts, air force pilots, movers and shakers.
We are the sandwich generation, caught between youth and old age. While few are still struggling up the career path, we're still active in work, travel and community. The view of life from the middle gives us an odd perspective. A warning from the dentist about receding gums has a secondary effect of making us want to phone the children long-distance and remind them to floss daily or end up soaking their teeth in a glass like grandpa.
We complain about aching knees, but not to our kids. What do they know of arthritis? Nor to our parents, for fear of setting off a long story of ailments as boring as our own. It forces us to bitch discriminately to friends and spouses.
It's a relief that our children take responsibility for their own lives. But at what point do we turn over the health and maintenance of our lives? It's one thing to sign over the remainder of the college savings account when that child graduates, quite another to name your child executor of your estate. How smart can anyone be who risks deafness listening to rock music at a decibel level that induces pain?
Many aging grandparents must have the same trepidation about our generation. We have grieved with friends at the funerals of their mothers and fathers, sympathized with them as they shoulder the burden of increased care, worried about who was to be the next victim of what ailment. We have faced mortality in its many guises, and it's not often pretty.
Yet life has its rewards at every stage. On the same mainland trip I took my octogenarian aunt to lunch. It was a perfect day in the company of a woman content with her life. She also had optimism and a wealth of love to see her through. It doesn't bother her to leave the driving or the lunch tab to me, which pleases me, too. I hope that 30 years down the road we -- and our children after us -- will look back with the same satisfaction.
Perhaps over lunch, or at a wedding.
Sally Sorenson is president of the Aloha Chapter of the Romance Writers of America.
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