Growing Up to be Middle Aged
Growing Up to be Middle Aged
Even though yesterday was about An Adventure in Indianapolis, today is different. As it happens, today is my 45th birthday. So, one question, of course, is: have I grown up?
Most of us are familiar with growing up during childhood. Some of us suffer from a culture that seems to believe that life is good while you are young, and then it sucks. Why aren’t more older people committing suicide? Why do older people often, but not always, have more money if that’s true?
Just consider: what if that isn’t entirely true? I heard that middle-aged adults often lie less than young adults, but mostly because they have grown up a bit more and figured out that it wasn’t helping.
Either that or they could finally do what they wanted to without having to lie to have still a place to live even though they did.
I was growing up in adult life. At this point, I do believe in it. I think a lot of it is just gaining more life experience.
I have recently heard rumors of people who don’t even think other people having experience is good, and some still get prejudiced against women for having relationship experiences.
By now, people should not be that way, but what can any of us do?…
Since age 36, I crossed over from having spent most of my life, or at least half of my life as a child, even though I was an adult, to have been an adult most of my life. I have one vague memory of when my father reached that point and went beyond it. During childhood, it seemed like all adults had been born as adults and would always be so.
Childhood lasted forever, and it was a bit of a relief to make it to adulthood, even though it took forever. I have continued to learn a lot even though I do not outgrow my clothes every year because of having grown.
What that has caused is that I now have to deal with issues about how long things last when I don’t have to get new ones because of having grown another 2 inches taller. Thank God/ess, I have not needed them due to having shrunk down to nothing nor gained 2 inches around the waist instead of being 2 inches taller – there’s growth, and there’s growth. Mmmm….no kidding.
Now, I’m so old – which just means ‘grown up’ and not actually ‘old’, that when I think of what made this way, while childhood was relevant a lot of it now is like “It’s because of what happened during my 20s and 30s” instead of “Its because of what happened when I was a child.”
The shortest best message I could give to anyone is that somehow life is ‘cumulative’ in terms of how learning matters.