(no subject)

[oyceter]

One of the strange things that's happened because of my taking up LJ around the same time I graduated from college is that I feel so inexperienced now. When I was a kid, or in high school, or in college, I always had this view of myself as being very mature, as though I understood the world. I felt wise and knowledgeable. And while I felt like I would be learning things about life all the time, my own self impression was that of age.

Now it's completely different, probably because of the change of environment. It sort of started with LJ and getting to know people of different generations as friends, not as "friends of my mom" or some such thing. I think in school it's so easy to exaggerate that one year difference between juniors and seniors, or the three year difference between freshmen and seniors. It feels like an unbreachable gap (especially for dating purposes). I mean, back then, I would think of people two years younger than me as "my sister's friends." Now they would probably be the closest people to my age that I've interacted with in a while (in RL). Also, back in high school, I always knew more people in the classes below me than above. Plus, I am a big sister, and as such, have often felt older and wiser (yes, that sound you hear would be my sister choking back laughter).

In college things were a little different -- I got to know the classes above me more, and as such, was sort of the baby of the group for a bit. Not me, per se, but I was the little soph playing with the juniors or something like that. In LJ, things feel even more like that. Possibly for the first time in my life, I got to talk to people who have been reading genre for longer than me, people who have a much better understanding of the sci-fi/fantasy tradition and canon and etc. I never had this sort of community in high school, because we were all discovering the same books at roughly the same time. That was wonderful too, in its own way, just as it's wonderful to show up here and say, "I like such, such and such" and have recs pour in.

I think another big factor is work. Obviously, since I am a recent grad, most people are work are older than me. The people at the bookstore were split between a generation a little older than my parents, and then a few people around my age (give or take ten years). The people at work now are, I think, about ten years older than me, and everyone is talking about not even marriage (which is still a scary thing for me to think about), but having kids and raising kids and kids blah blah. I sort of eye them and my brain goes into panic mode when all this is mentioned. And because it's work, I have to act as though people much older than me are my peers, which is very, very disconcerting. It took me a very long while getting used to calling people older than me by their first names instead of Mr./Ms. So-and-so or Blah ahyi/shushu (auntie/uncle). It still feels extremely unpolite to address emails by first name to people higher up on the corporate ladder.

And so now I feel like I'm just really starting to crawl around in the world and only beginning to get a grasp on things. I feel very displaced and lost also. I can't quite figure out (still) where my life is going, despite the new job, or what the meaning of it all is, or anything. And it's especially odd and frightening watching my parents grow older and worry more about health issues. Mortality seems much closer now than it did when I was in school.

Of course, I will reread this a year or five years, or many more years down the line and shake my head at just how little I know.

Comments

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

And so now I feel like I'm just really starting to crawl around in the world and only beginning to get a grasp on things. I feel very displaced and lost also. I can't quite figure out (still) where my life is going, despite the new job, or what the meaning of it all is, or anything. And it's especially odd and frightening watching my parents grow older and worry more about health issues. Mortality seems much closer now than it did when I was in school.

Welcome to life as we know it. I don't think that there are very many people who have it all figured out; I am in my fifties, and I stilldon't have the answers. Sometimes I'm not even sure I know the questions! While it is true that as I get older, things like health assume more importance, I think it is balanced by the experiences I have had which help me cope with tough times. Age is so much a state of mind. I don't feel middle-aged, even though I look at myself and know it is true. I still feel as confused, and excited and eager to experience life as I did when I was 20. It's just that now I have so much more to draw on.
One of the really neat things about LJ for me is just that fact that I get to interact with people of all ages and experiences. I have people on my flist who's posts delight me, people who I probably would never come into contact with in RL; for example I have relatively little interaction with teenagers, but there is at least one on my flist.
In my life I have had friends who were much younger than me; also those who were much older. They all added so much to my life.
I'm just rambling now. I guess what matters is that you learn and grow, no matter how young or old you are.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I have people on my flist who's posts delight me Arrggh. That should be whose, shouldn't it? I hate it when I make mistakes in grammar. I was tired. :(

[oyceter]

I really love how LJ has started bringing together people with various experiences and ages. College was great, but sometimes there would be a shock as soon as I stepped out of the campus and saw people of other generations.

I figure the best thing to do now about the Big Questions is just bumble along and not even try to pretend that I have any answers ;).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think in school it's so easy to exaggerate that one year difference between juniors and seniors, or the three year difference between freshmen and seniors.

It is easy to exaggerate, and I've seen people behave pretty ridiculously based on that exaggeration. I think, though, that people are growing and changing at such an extreme rate until at least college that the gap can also actually be much larger than it will be later in life.

I had a friend who was a high school senior when I was a freshman. I had a massive crush on him, and when we got back in touch a few years ago, it turned out he also had a massive crush on me, but was afraid our parents would really, really disapprove. And when I told my dad this, he said, "That was a very mature thing to do. He was a young man and you were a little girl. It would not have been appropriate." After I got over a little indignation, I realized that Dad was right: Matt really had been much more experienced and much closer to where he was going than I was, at the time. (I don't think that means I shouldn't have dated him, but there was clearly a difference in experiences and maturity and etc.) Now I think nothing of a 25-year age gap or more with my friends, but I think that 4-year age gap was more meaningful then than a 25-year one is now.

The weird thing was when this has happened with my family. My godfather is 14 years older than me, and until I graduated college in '99, he was clearly Older And Wiser, one of the grown-ups where I was one of the kids. Now we interact as peers. Neither of us has kids. I'm married and he isn't. Somehow this cancels out a good bit of the age difference in family terms, so we can talk like contemporaries and have a good time together.

[oyceter]

I think, though, that people are growing and changing at such an extreme rate until at least college that the gap can also actually be much larger than it will be later in life.

Definitely agree. I knew a friend who was dating someone about three years younger than him while we were freshmen in college. While three years isn't all that much outside of school, the gap between their experiences of just getting into college and worrying about sophomore year high school was very strange.

Right now one of the weirdest but coolest generational changes is starting to get to know my parents' friends as people and not just assorted aunties and uncles. It's just so interesting listening to them talking about their kids, who are my friends or my sister's friends, and trying to see things from their perspective instead.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

It sort of started with LJ and getting to know people of different generations as friends, not as "friends of my mom" or some such thing.

It's cool, isn't it?

[oyceter]

It's very, very cool. ^_^

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I sued to be amused by an on-going argument between my grandmother and her sister-in-law; my grandmother has never hidden her age, but she was the plain one with three gorgeous sisters. So she "opted out" of the whole beauty/youth/attraction thing at a very early age.

Now, she had this sister-in-law who was ten years older, and as the years went by, she kept lopping years off the age she'd admit to, until at the end, she was claiming to be ten years younger than my grandmother. Which would have been fine, but my grandmother, exasperated by her all their lives, ended up having to be her caretaker, and when dealing with doctors, thought it downright ridiculous when Aunt Harriette coyly claimed to be just over eighty when she was in fact in her mid nineties.

But as I get older I can see that inside, Aunt Harriett still felt young and flirtatious and hoped to be attractive to someone...I don't feel like a fifty-something old bat, I can still be my ten year old self, my teen self, my twenty-something self, my thirty and forty self--in fact I am ageless, only my bod is not.

And like the others, I love LiveJournal for the variety of people it brings--ages, gender, and people from all over the world.

[oyceter]

There's this one ahyi who will go around saying things like "Oh, everything looks good on the young!" and mock-complain about how hard it is to find flattering clothes for herself. And my mom spends a great deal of time telling me I should lotion and massage and whatnot so as to not get wrinkles when I get older.

I think it's funny, and I used to mock my mom mercilessly for dying her hair and such, but I guess she must miss the way she used to look when she goes through old photographs and the like.

Am a total LJ addict, like everyone else here ;). Still completely enamoured with how many different people I've met via LJ.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sigh...I had to give up wearing one favorite gown because I really look like a dreadful Miss Haversham in it, though I do so love it.

I might have to give up the other, the one I love best, the one I promised myself 25 years ago I'd wear if I ever had anything to celebrate in a big way. (Or maybe I'll just wear it in private.) But these gowns were designed for the young, and though they look beautiful to my eyes, full of grace, my daughter says that Gunny Saxe and Jessica gowns are totally dorky seventies--and old bats should NOT wear them in publick. Alas, alas!

[oyceter]

Oh no! I hate giving up pretty dresses!

I think one should wear whatever one wants in public, despite embarrassment to one's immediate family ;).

My mom once dragged out her old college clothes and my immediate impressions were: 1) OMG my mom was so skinny! and 2) Hee! Seventies! Disco clothes! It was really cool though, and I wanted to wear them and be sort of retro, but alas, my mom back then was way skinnier than me.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

that 4-year age gap was more meaningful then than a 25-year one is now.

It's interesting that once you get away from the obvious divisions made by growing up and the artificial ones made by school, it turns out that age is not a really good way to sort the people with whom you have something in common! Not even counting LJ, where we can't see the ages, in my live friends I have a span of at least thirty-five years among the people I consider very close, good friends. And of course more than that in acquaintances.

It's interesting in my generation, because a good many of the women older than me are really into a very different cultural thing. It seems that if you were out of college by 1960, at least if you're a southern woman, you still believe in lots of rigid ideas that I can't subscribe to (all the way from wearing pantyhose, even in summer, to expecting your husband to share equally in the housework). However, I fortunately met several wonderful women now in their 70's but with the freedom and openness of much younger folk. Finding younger women I feel at ease with is much easier--maybe because I taught people in their 20's for so long, possibly I didn't exactly grow up.

But none of the women my age or older seem very at ease with computers. I was lucky to have a job that made them very accessible and helpful, not that I'm very geeky, but still. I suspect that will remain a big gender divide for my generation.

[oyceter]

But none of the women my age or older seem very at ease with computers. I was lucky to have a job that made them very accessible and helpful, not that I'm very geeky, but still. I suspect that will remain a big gender divide for my generation.

I should probably stop mercilessly teasing my mom about her complete lack of skill with the computer. It's funny, though, because half of her friends are using email and AIM and the like, and they send her emails and yell at her because she checks her account once every two weeks or so.

One of the really interesting things about talking more with my mom's friends as almost-peers is seeing how many of my mom's beliefs and thought processes are uniquely her own and how many are shared by other people around her age group. Also, a lot of the aunties are really, really funny (intentionally), except I didn't pay enough attention before.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I think that things change between generations when the power shifts. You probably couldn't be almost equal friends with the great aunties as long as you were in the power of your parents, however kindly they may have used that power. It's like trying to gossip with your boss--just not comfortable.

Once you're on your own, there's no power to deal with, so they become friends.

I saw another power shift when my mother became very old and more dependent on me. Sounds sad, but actually also made for some very nice revelations.

Yeah, the computer thing varies a lot from individual to individual. I'm sure the people I'm currently pestering with computer questions are rolling their eyes at me!

[oyceter]

Mm, good point about power shifts. I could never quite figure out how other students at college (and high school) managed to joke around happily with their teachers and professors. I would just get horribly nervous thinking about my grades ;).

It's much more interesting talking with my old teachers now that I'm out of school.

The thought of my parents getting old freaks me out... I can't quite take care of myself yet, I'm not sure how I'll manage without them =(.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't have brought up that sad thought. The great chance is that you'll be well on your way to being an old person yourself before you have to worry about them--life is long these days!

[oyceter]

It's true, but still scary. Ah well... must remember to enjoy the now instead of worry about the later.

[thinkum]

And because it's work, I have to act as though people much older than me are my peers, which is very, very disconcerting. It took me a very long while getting used to calling people older than me by their first names instead of Mr./Ms. So-and-so or Blah ahyi/shushu (auntie/uncle). It still feels extremely unpolite to address emails by first name to people higher up on the corporate ladder.

It could be worse. When I started my current job, I was about 28...and in a totally bizarre coincidence, the executive to whom I reported was someone whose daughter I used to babysit when I was a teenybopper. It took about two YEARS before I could bring myself to address him as "John" rather than "Dr. Smith"^[1]. Talk about age-based insecurity!

Don't worry, it gets easier over time (and not just because you get older!). Today, all three of my best friends, and my significant other, are ten or more years older than I am. Age stops mattering, after a while, and you can concentrate on actual people, rather than their years.


^[1] names changed to protect the innocent ::grin::

[oyceter]

Whoa, weird!

One of my dad's old college friends works at the place I'm at now (he actually passed my resume along), and it's so weird addressing everyone else in the company by their first name and thinking of this guy as Uncle Blah.

I really like this non-age-separation thing, especially after so many years of only really getting to know people of my own age.

[thinkum]

The adjustment period is very strange, but after that, it's a lot of fun. :-)

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I had similar revelation first after coming to Canada. Mostly because it radically changed (expanded) my circle of friends and acquaintances to include people of all ages and backgrounds, second, because everyone here is on the first name basis, whereas in Russia it is not. To call people twice older that I am by their first names as a challenge for me at the beginning. (in Russia it would be first name+paternal or Auntie/Uncle Name for my parents’ friends/my friends’ parents)

And LJ adds to it – especially we start to know each other by the content, not by the form ;)

But I never can call my former biology teacher who’s been my good friend for years by her first name. Curious, isn't it?

[oyceter]

Yes! It's also been very ingrained in me to call my parents' friends as Name + Auntie/Uncle (sometimes last name, sometimes English first name), so it's very, very strange to me calling people older than me by their first names. It was also weird meeting my American friends' parents because I had no idea what to call them! They would say, "Oh just call me Mary" or something, but it still felt very impolite.