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Top Comments: Becoming Our Parents Age Edition [1]
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Date: 2022-10-10
It may have been Indigenous Peoples Day but the pup does not understand "we can sleep in" :)
This past weekend, about 75 people I went to high school with got together for our latest Reunion. I attended the one five years ago under peer pressure from my closest high school friend, and despite all the stereotype about reunions it turned out to be fantastic… but I couldn’t make this one for a number of reasons so had to stalk social media for pictures.
I have a little two-part thought experiment for you… close your eyes and think of your classmates from high school (or church, or camp, or somewhere else from when you were a kid). Have you seen them in the years, decades since, whether in photos or in person? Do you recognize them still?
As I looked at the hundreds of photos my classmates posted on social media, I was struck by how many people I recognized, even though we’ve all aged a lot. There were maybe two or three people I didn’t recognize, and in every case it was someone I barely knew from back then. I also was aware that overlaid on their current features was my mind’s memory of how they looked at 10, or 14, or 18, all blended together.
The people you thought of from your youth, if you’ve seen them as adults do you also still “see” them as the kids you all once were? Or is that just me?
Second part of my thought experiment… imagine your parents or their peers from when you were a teenager or young adult. Do they look ‘old’ to you, in your mind’s eye? How old are they in that image you’re holding, compared to how old you are now?
What has me thinking about youth and aging and parents and ourselves? Well, the reunion I just missed was my 40th, meaning our multi-class group is all in our late 50s/early 60s. And as I looked at the photos, for a split second I was struck that these KIDS I’ve known forever are… well, a fortieth reunion was the last either of my parents attended before they died far too young. When I attend my 45th sometime in 2027, I will have outlived them both. I know I don’t feel as old now as I thought they felt then. And it’s with a shock that it finally hits me that THEY didn’t feel as old as I thought they did then, either.
I remember looking at photos of my parents and their peers at reunions thinking “wow, look at those old people getting together to reminisce”. When I was an undergrad and members of the Class of 1950 showed up for homecoming, we chuckled as they told tales of their own time on campus. Now I’m those very same people, and it’s my children and their peers looking at us the same way we once looked at older people.
As I was writing this, I remembered something I’d seen a while back, a series of photos by Tom Hussey showing elderly people looking into a mirror and seeing their younger self reflected back. It’s EXACTLY what I’ve been feeling this weekend.
We may be older, greyer, a little looser-skinned and we don’t fit into our clothes from back then. But our smiles, the crinkles around our eyes, the PERSON inside each of our bodies is still there. And that is a realization that perhaps only those of us on the other side of aging can truly see.
What do you think about all this? Or are you thinking about something else? Whatever it is, take a look at tonight’s Tops then come share your thoughts in the comments!
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