Yesterday, on the day of my birthday, I asked my parents and grandmother what they remembered about 36.
When my dad was 36 I was one and still an only child. We lived in east Texas and money was tight enough that he kept careful track of the finances. When my mom was 36 I started Kindergarten and my brother was two. She described how the whole family had to adjust to the new routine of a kid starting school. By then we were in west Texas in the home where I would spend most of my childhood. It hadn’t been painted yet, so the interior walls were all still goldenrod yellow from the previous owners. I remember how goldenly garish that house was all too well! At 36, my grandmother had a 12 year-old daughter (my mom) and a 10 year-old son. She was commuting into town to work at Kresge’s department store at the old (now long-abandoned) mall and my grandfather was working in the oil field.
It was a gift to hear from my elders about where they were at my age, what they were doing, and what they were worried about or adjusting to in that phase of life. Hearing that my dad was still watching his paychecks carefully at that age gives me hope that maybe my finances aren’t so out of wack after all and that I can still build a better financial future for myself. Learning that my mom was still settling into the home I would grow up in gives me hope that it’s okay that I haven’t settled into my long-term home yet. That even if I still don’t for sometime that it’s okay. It takes time to build a home and a community. Knowing that my grandmother was a commuting working mother raising two kids reminds me that however stressed I might feel sometimes that my life is always manageable because she juggled work and kids, which I won’t ever have to do.
I’ve loved growing older each year. With each passing year I feel more at home in myself. However, I still manage to put quite a lot of pressure on myself to be more and do more. I worry that I am not as far ahead as I think I should be with all the goals I set for myself. By interviewing my elders, I gained the gift of perspective. It was a potent reminder that I’m right on track and right where I need to be. While my journey is my own and won’t look like any of theirs, I can still savor the glimpse into their younger selves and also know how wonderfully life’s turned out for them since then. Because I can see myself in them, I gain hope that my life is turning out wonderfully too.