Do you remember when your grandparents said things that were perhaps a little bit socially incorrect, and what they said made you cringe and groan, but you kind of gave them a little bit of a pass because what they said wasn’t meant to be mean or hateful, and what they had said, came more from the fact that they had been raised in a different era (and also, you absolutely adored your cute, now child-like grandparents)?
It hit me yesterday, that I have passed into that age bracket, where if I am not careful, I could be the cause of the cringes and groans. (another aging milestone – yippee) My friend was relaying a story in our friend group text chat, which I won’t relay because it is not my story to tell, but she was saying the difference in reactions, between she (mild discomfort, but generational understanding) and her daughter (pure outrage) to something that a friend of a friend had said, in playful passing, was nothing short of striking.
The story my friend relayed put me in mind of a conversation I had earlier this week with my youngest son. He is home for the Thanksgiving break and he had seen one of their childhood buddies at the gym. This young man is a brilliant guy and is attending one of the most prestigious law schools in our country. My son relayed that his friend had gotten both of his ears pierced. I must have said something like, “Oh brother! Why would he do that?! Isn’t he in law school?”
To which my son, answered, “Mom, stop being so antiquated.”
I replied, “I am antiquated.” And then I pondered about it. I am antiquated. Facts. I have officially reached the beginning of antiquity. My thoughts and my feelings and my perceptions and my impressions about things, perhaps need some cleaning up and modernizing, I suppose. How much of what I say and what I do and what I think, are actually my true beliefs about things, and how much of this is just mind-swirl, indoctrinated stuff from my childhood, which has always been validated by my similarly raised generation, until the younger generations started into adulthood? Do I really want to become one of those cantankerous old ladies who everyone gives wide berth, but excuses my wackiness for my age? If I do want to become one of those outspoken old coots, I want it to be about things that I do feel strongly about, things which I have really contemplated about from every angle, and things that I know from the deepest parts of my heart and my soul to be timeless and true. I don’t want to ever become so antiquated, that I forget that I can be wrong about things. I can be wrong about a lot of things. I never want to become so antiquated that I become afraid of change. I want to be one of those interesting, intriguing antiques, that is so uniquely cool and so genuinely itself, that it is not just tolerated up in the dusty attic, but the antique makes a major comeback, because there has never been anything quite like it, ever made.