They are all grown up

In the past few years my role as the youngest person in the room has reversed. In many of the circles that I frequent, I am now the oldest person. I have come to learn from experience that many things cannot be taught, and in turn now understand the wisdom of words from my elders. In the past three years I have associated with more people who are just graduated from school or were still in school than I have since actually being in college. I tried to share some of my wisdom with them, sometimes they listen sometimes they just politely nod. This year two of my younger friends recall different conversations I had with them when we first met and laugh at their earlier thought of “What’s wrong with him?” It is so rewarding when I finally see the light bulb go off and they get it; even when it takes years for that light bulb to go off. Today I saw a Facebook posting from another younger friend of mine that now understands some of the realities of the world. It is great to see that she finally gets it; I am seeing her grow up before my eyes. Unfortunately ignorance is often bliss, remove the ignorance and you remove the only shield protecting certain forms of joy.

We don’t get older everyone around us gets younger.

This past month, for the first time I was told that the relationship would not work out because of the age difference. I have always categorized people’s situation into life stages and now I have created a new classification. It used to be school age, work age, married, with kids etc. Now the work age needs to be split into newly graduated and seasoned workers. I have noticed that I have more in common with the 50-60 year olds than I do the college kids. How depressing.