Christmas Tea and Old(er) People
“I can’t wait to see what you’ll write about this,” Karen said to me today as we sat in a gorgeous house at a Christmas Tea. Karen’s comment was prompted by the fact that we were, let’s just say, significantly younger than most of the other women in attendance.
I had just driven back from visiting my grandparents with my dad, so to be honest, the age difference hadn’t really registered with me. I was simply glad to be able to speak in a normal tone of voice after shouting at the three nearly deaf folks at breakfast this morning. I see where the path of life is leading me in this regard at least.
So much of my time these past few years has been spent with people who fall into the “young adult” category that I sometimes forget that I am not always (or ever) the wisest person in the room. It is so easy for me to think either “I’ve got this all figured out” or “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing,” but spending time with people who have, ahem, a few more years than I do behind them, I realize that they feel the same way I do – confident and completely befuddled – in turn. I take comfort in that (perhaps not as much comfort as if I saw life coming to a neat and predictable path, but still some comfort)
As I listened to my grandfather talk about how his dad used to carry donuts and milk to the houses of people in the church who couldn’t afford his services as a barber during the Depression and as I heard my grandmother talk about how she learned to be self-sufficient as an only child, as I watched these women today talk with one another about their lives and their “projects” and their goals, I realized I, too, have so much to learn, including my first two lessons — “Buy hearing aids and wear them” and “When you reach 60, you look cute in Christmas sweaters.”
