I used to always think it was supremely impressive when young people would do remarkable things. When an 18 year old wrote a novel or a 16 year old graduated college or something I would be like: "Wow, they are just about as amazing as a person can be 'cause they have accomplished so much in such a short time"... now that I'm a little older I have shifted my view... Now I feel that the title of supremely impressive should go to the older folks that do things... When I was younger I was hopeful and driven and untainted. I had time... kids and younger people have time and energy. Now that I've worked a full time job for a few years and I have bills to pay and other adult responsibilities, I realize it takes a lot more courage and moxy to push ones' self to do impressive things when you're older... lately when I hear about a grandmother graduating with honors from a major college or an old lady writing a best-selling novel at the age of 65, I am like "hat's off to you Mam, you went through decades and decades of working to earn money because you had to and paying taxes because you had to and conforming to all of these things that you had to do because you are a member of society... and yet you still managed to maintain your sense of self and managed to conquer your goals... very very impressive... I hope that's me some day". The young kids are still impressive of coarse, but you had the youthful vigor and innocence on your side. Old folks have got to fight harder to make time to go for their goals and they have more at stake when they take risks, so that just seems harder. I think it's like the old folks are running around the track jumping hurdles and spinning plates on their nose, and they aren't going to make it around first, but all the young kids have to worry about is going fast, they don't have to worry about dealing with all the other obstacles.
I feel like I am at a point in my life though where I can't really do anything that will be super impressive. I'm 25; I totally missed the "oh you've accomplished so much at a young age" boat and I am years and years away from the "wow, what courage and tenacity you have to go and do something impressive now" wagon. I am a middle aged person and anything I do will at best be mildly impressive, yet I feel like it is still a very important time in my life... this is the time where I can start lining myself up to be the impressive granny. I suppose it really is never too late to go and accomplish your dreams... but I think it will make it a lot more possible for me to go get my farm and whatnot if I start learning the skills I need now and line myself up to go in that direction. Some things do take a life time to master, so I should get on that.
Also, there are a lot of things I would like to do and see in the mean time... I get kind of jealous and bitter when I find out about all of the cool things that people my age are doing... Facebook is horrible for me because of that. Yesterday I was looking at people's photos on Facebook and it made me so envious of everyone and then I got mad at myself for being jealous of my friends. Why should I feel anything other than happy that my brother and his wife got to go to Europe and have tons of fun there? Why does it bother me that a couple of my friends went hiking in castle rock and couple others went hiking in the Muir woods? Why do I think it's so cool that a friend of mine seems to have just spontaneously decided one day to take a trip to So.Cal and back and why does that make me feel bad? It makes no sense. It is completely illogical... and illogical things are very frustrating to me, but at the same time I do appreciate emotions... usually... I wish that it didn't make me feel bad about myself to see other people enjoying things that I would like to do, but I guess what it comes down to is that I feel left out... and it makes me feel guilty that I don't go out and do more... I hate feeling like I am being a loafer and wasting my life... and feeling left out kind of reinforces my feeling of worthlessness because I feel like I'm not cool enough to be taken on outings like that by my friends... I mean obviously I don't expect Rob and Nicole to take me on their romantic European get away, but seeing their pictures are just a reminder of the fact that Tony and I have pretty much never been on a trip of our own... other than the trip I took Tony on to the San Diego Zoo for his birthday the first year we were together. All of our trips since that one have been to see family... and that is fun and I love seeing our families, but ahh to have a romantic get away wouldn't that be fantastic?
Usually I can work through the jealousy though and tell myself one day I will get to go to all of the places I want to... or at least a lot of them, but there always seems to be some excuse not to go... the weather or money or the allure of the couch... sigh... I like going out in the rain sometimes though... there are less people around and it makes things feel more adventurous and a lot of the trips that I would like to take are very low cost things... and I get plenty of couch time during the week. Next time I have a day or a weekend I am going to drag Tony's ass out of the House and we're going to go somewhere... even if its just to the trails behind our house... I still have time to load up the impressive granny wagon and ride it all the way to impressive geratric glory.
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