The World Moves On

I have to laugh. I was born in 1956 and most of the time I trundle along without thinking of my age very much. Like most of us, internally I feel pretty timeless, and if my body occasionally reminds me that I'm actually not...well, I can usually shrug that off pretty easily.

Over the past couple of days, though, I've noticed two news articles that have slapped me upside the head and let me know that the rest of society may not view me as quite as timelessly as I view myself.

The first was an internet piece, the annual Beloit College "Mindset Piece" (http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/), which I saw posted on another blog. For the past several years, this piece has been written to help profs realize what this year's incoming college freshmen have and haven't experienced (based on their age) in their lives. It's always interesting, but for some reason it hit me this year that MY children would find this list interesting and, if they were teaching, might need to refer to it to be able to relate to that age group. After all, this year's incoming freshmen were born in 1989, by which time my kids were already 8 and 10!

The second item bursting my "timeless" bubble was in today's paper. Apparently American Girls is coming out with a new historical era doll this month, Julie, created as a 9 year old girl living in San Francisco during 1974. Ouch. In 1974 I was already 18; I was actually 9 in 1965. Evidently that makes me REALLY historical.

Oh, well, as they say, "It's better than the alternative."

Like so many people, I must say that I actually like being older. I generally feel much more self confident and comfortable with myself than I did when I was younger. Life has only gotten more interesting, too. When I can ignore our cultural bias against midlife and older individuals, I'm happy to be where I am.

So bring on the historical references, World. I wouldn't want to have missed my life's experiences for anything, and I'm proud to have survived this long.