I ripped some pages out of some past issues of Real Simple magazine lately that reminded me of my childhood. One reader, named Anna Polisann, wrote in to the editor, that she now realized that her mom had trained her for 2020, when as a child, her mother told her, “Go find something to do! Learn to enjoy your own company.“
I think that my generation and older generations before mine, often got those same marching orders, many, many times, from our parents. The younger generations seem to have a lot more structured time. Oftentimes, as I was driving my kids from one practice, to another scheduled playdate, to another lesson of some sort, I would question the sanity of what I was doing. It didn’t seem right to keep them, (nor all of us, really) so scheduled up. I remember rationalizing that even though I didn’t necessarily agree with this direction of more structured childhoods, if I didn’t do it, my children would be left in the dust. And unfortunately that was often true. Most of the sports teams in our children’s schools were filled with the kids who had spent their childhoods on travel sports teams, or with intense private instruction. Many kids were taking college level courses, sometimes starting in middle school. I still question if all of the pressures that this way of life brings on to kids is healthy. I really don’t think that over-structuring our children is necessarily good, but at the same time, when comparing generations, we are never comparing apples to apples. I didn’t grow up with a home computer and a cell phone. My parents remember getting their first TVs. Each generation of children experiences a vastly different world, if we really consider how fast things change in technology, and in society.
Still, I am happy that I received the “enjoy your own company” lesson. Frankly, I really enjoy my own company. I’m at my crankiest when I don’t get enough time to just be with myself. Ironically, this pandemic situation, while making many people feel “lonely”, actually robbed me of some my alone time and peaceful solitude. At this time last year, my three youngest children all started studying from home, and my daughter still studies at home. My husband has been working from home, for the first time in his career, since last spring, too. It has been adjustment for me, to share the house during the day. When more people are in any one area, the energy is more aroused. I notice this, even in my dogs’ behavior. Energy feeds off of other energy, keeping things more abuzz. I have learned to take rides in my car, or walks out in nature, to soothe my nerves, when the electric energy around me, is just too much.
Another reader in Real Simple answered the question, “What is your favorite book to give as a gift?” Jennifer Waller answered, “Betty Crocker Cookbook or The Martha Stewart Cookbook. I’ve had both for years and still refer to them. There is something comforting about pages with butter splotches and sugar crumbs in the spine.“
I loved Ms. Waller’s last line. Isn’t that the truth? Getting back to the idea of how quickly life is changing all around us, there is a huge amount of comfort in the things that stay the same. Every cookbook, that is worth its weight in gold, has a few grease stains and crumbs to dust off. And that is true for every generation of people still alive on this Earth. I hope that this “well-worn, classic cookbook fact” remains to be a fact of life that never, ever changes. There is great comfort in the classic things in life, which stand the test of time. These things become the steady rocks that we cling to, as reminders that there is still some stability and constants to carry with us, in an otherwise, sometimes seemingly chaotic, frenetic, quickly changing world.
Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.