We all heard the piercing ding at the same time.
Which is saying something, since over 20,000 of us – women of all sizes, shapes, colors, ages – were gathered at Boston’s Charles Street to begin the Women for Health 10K run.
Joanne elbowed me as we stood side-by-side waiting for the starting gun to go off. “Do you see what I see?” she asked, staring down at her phone. Continue reading
Do you remember what it was like to be 25?
Me neither.
Although some of my wonderful blog followers ARE around that magical age; most of you are … ahem… beyond it.
So let’s go back. What was it like? To be young and unfettered and feasting on the newness of adulthood and freedom, relationships, and a wide world open for exploration and delight.
Confusing.
For me, the wide world was confusing and frustrating. So much to do and learn, yet so confining for a woman in the late 1970s, married, no children, ready to make a ‘mark’ and yet wondering what mark to make.
I had a graduate degree in literature, but could only get hired as a secretary or a teacher (or billboard saleswoman, but that’s another story). My family couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t pregnant yet and making a ‘life’ literally and figuratively. I was, after all, 25!
Ahh, how things have changed.
Flash to this spring, when my marvelous nephew arrived to spend a little quality r & r time with his aunt (me), cousin, and brother here in the bay area. He turned 25 on this visit and his 25 is so different from mine.
X is involved with the D.C. political world (working for Senators from two states that begin with an “N” and end in an “A”). He lives in the city of large egos and bigger mouths, and despite his decency and decorum (or because of it) he is surviving.
No, more than that, he’s thriving and learning and MAKING A DIFFERENCE, something I strived to do at 25 but with much less success.
X has a few bumps and bruises, but he’s crashing down that wall between childhood and adulthood, between the naivety of youth and the cynicism of experience, between wanting to do it all to realizing that what he can do, should be done with gusto and fervor and faith.
And truly, even at our age, whatever that may be, isn’t that how we want to live our life?
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Wow, that’s an old expression from the American Civil War (!), yet that’s what pops in my mind when I think of my nephew. At 25.
We should all exist like we’re 25, and damn the torpedoes of ‘life.’
Full speed ahead.
roughwighting 