Stalking the Stacks with Library Lil
*Stalking the Stacks with Library Lil* |
2009-03-12 I've been spending a fair amount of time on facebook lately (I *know* I am just a big cliche), and have connected with something like 40 people I went to high school with (and have refused to friend at least 6 more). A big rush of people I graduated with are hitting the big 40 in the next few weeks and I find myself just struck with some big realizations. Or maybe I'm just feeling introspective.First I feel I should mention that I am a nosey parker. I read people's walls. I read the wall to walls.--not for everyone but if something interesting pops up on the homepage, I'll follow it. Because of this, I've discovered that many of my high school peers have children in the tween to teen years. One of my former classmates had lapband surgery, another had brain surgery. And many many of them look old--in that sort of washed out trying not to look old way. I wonder if people look at my picture on facebook and think I look old in the same way. I look at the people I went to school with and think about them dealing with high school kids and problems and just think that wow, we are in such different places right now. Is it that at 40, I should be dealing with the travails of a pre-teen ( my SIL and BIL are) or is it that I don't feel 40? When I was the same age as Amy and Emily, my mom was 30. When she turned 40 was 16. Yet, 40 seems to have not really made its mark on me. Oh sure, I feel creakier than I did 20 years ago, I feel more jaded about the world, and sometimes I feel like I don't have the fun I used to. But maybe that is the perception of memory. Maybe I think my 20s were fun and filled with laughter because that is what I remember. Maybe I feel like this time isn't that much laughter because I think about today and all the times I was frustrated and overwhelmed and glossed over all the cute things that the ladies did that gave me a chuckle, but in 10 years maybe all I'll remember is the chuckles. (and as an aside--"kindergarten spelling" cracks me up. Emily wrote in her journal--that she's keeping for dad while he's gone: we saw lisrds.) But then in 10 years I'll be dealing with teenagers and my classmates will have grandchildren. Oftentimes I feel like I don't fit in with people around me. I don't work full-time like some of my friends do, so I have more felxibility in my time, but yet I have children, which takes away the flexibility that some of my older friends have. Maybe this facebook thing is just an extension of that, then again maybe I'm just weird and not really just out of snyc. |
