It's hit me this past year how old I'm getting. Sure, I'm not old - maybe this is the infamous "mid-life crisis". Maybe it's the injuries to my body, or the flab (I do NOT remember so many parts jiggling in the past).
But especially, my students make me think of it. Their parents are usually my age or younger. I could have a ten-year-old right now. Heck, I could have a 20-year-old right now. I am seeing parents with their children and I am imagining my kids in school...all of us ten years older.
I distinctly remember in my twenties, thinking people in their thirties were old. I played softball with a woman who was 37 and she looked so young, but she was old. I played on two softball teams, and I was "the kid". They were in their thirties and constantly made jokes about my age versus their age. At the time, I didn't feel much different then them. I didn't understand the constant referencing of it. I thought their complaints about getting too old, and not being able to do things were exaggerated. Now I understand. It's more like regret. Regretting the loss of your youth - tight skin, toned muscles, life ahead of you, many possibilities, little real life sorrow.
But no one in their twenties would agree. Your twenties comes with plenty of its own difficulties: namely settling into a career, becoming independent, and being respected it for it. And no age is without it's sorrows. They just hold different weights at different ages I think. I don't know, I think I might have even been wiser and more peaceful and patient at 25 then I am now. Sigh.
Or maybe consequences are more severe as you get older. You pay physically for mistakes. Emotional crisis are felt by your husband and children. Financial mistakes cost your family. Other mistakes could cost a job - or happiness in a job.
When I look at my ten, eleven, and twelve year old students - I think about where I was that many years ago.
I definitely was not ready to have babies. Sure, I wanted to be married and have a family - but I couldn't imagine it. I was getting closer, year by year. But I was not ready. Twelve years ago I had just finished a year long tour of Europe. My best friend's husband had died of cancer and she was suicidal. I was writing a book and searching for a career to settle into. I struggled with joblessness, worth, and direction.
I wanted to keep living free, writing, and if any job would just give me a chance - I knew I could be great at it, because it was my nature. I was hard-working, honest, self-reflecting, and teachable. Bring it on.
But I had sent out so many resumes in the wake of 9/11 - I was just shooting for anything at this point. I distinctly remember driving home one day from an interview to be a hostess at the Cheesecake Factory. The Cheesecake Factory. Ugh. They make their employees take a psychological survey and it spiraled me into a lot of introspection. The test depressed me and I left the restaurant crying. I did not want to be a hostess at the Cheesecake Factory.
That was a turning point for me. After that, I decided I had to stay true to what I had learned and what I wanted, and anything less might destroy me. It wasn't that I couldn't - I knew I could do anything - whether I could find a job or not, I wasn't in a position where I had to sell myself short.
I came "close" on one more interview - to be an assistant editor at Penguin Putnam. Who knows how it would have worked out, but I was so excited at the idea of editing for a publisher in New York. At the end of that interview I dislocated my shoulder putting on my fancy leather jacket from Italy. My Interviewer took me to the hospital.
And I didn't get the job. But she said, after that ordeal, she thought I could handle labor and delivery no problem.
hooray.
I was able to get buy for a year with help from many people. I was never desperate. I had some cash, my friends helped me by paying me to babysit, getting groceries, or offering me odd jobs. My brothers paid me for jobs when I visited, and in the end - my old boss paid me to live with her. She was traveling and wanted me to just be at the house for the sake of her son whom I had nannied for many years and who was now in high school.
From their I found Americorps and The New York Teaching Fellows. I decided to give a try at teaching. Throughout my own schooling, whenever I had the chance to "teach" my class, I had loved it. I had never thought of myself as a teacher - but at the very least, it would give me some great writing material.
I fell apart at that interview too. I had to give a demo lesson, and I forgot what I was saying in the middle of the sentence, and then I forgot my point and what I was teaching. It was like my piano recitals all over again.
But, no one judged me too harshly for it - as everyone in the room was applying and feeling the same nerves as I ... and I got into the program anyhow ... and I started my career as a teacher.
So, I wasn't thinking about marriage or family then either. Beginning teaching in the ghetto left no room for thought of the future. The here and now was just too loud.
Three years after beginning my teaching career I was ready to travel some, but I also was ready to "unpack". I wanted a place to call home, and literally unpack the things I had spread out over different homes. That was the year I met Tolga. Maybe I had opportunities before that I could have pursued - but I was never that kind of person. I never had a serious relationship because I was a serious person - and if the person wasn't someone I could see myself with forever, I didn't pursue it. I also gave people very little chance - that's my INFJ personality I guess.
It is nothing less than amazing that Tolga and I found each other. Maybe I was ready, but I sure was ready for him to make a mistake and to write him off too. It's probably a good thing I only saw him for three days in such an innocent environment: in the mountains, drinking tea, talking about life -- because the rest of relationship was built on communication, and that was where he stole my heart.
I am aging, but my second life began when I married Tolga - and that's an amazing feeling that I don't want to forget. A friend told me once he felt another life started when he had children, but I think our children are just a natural extension of our relationship. Life has gotten bigger and smaller all at once. I no longer pursue traveling, or sports, or friends, or music, or church and all those things that filled my life before.
I am older, but we have these very new lives to guide - and I hope this age will bring me more wisdom and patience and faith.
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