Past Lives Revisited
I moved today.
The most important thing, I think, about the move has been dragging out of the cubbyholes a number of plastic containers that, for the past five years, have held the detritus of past relationships.
Steady Eddie remarked that a number of the things in those containers looked as if they were gifts. He's right--they were gifts at one time.
As we kept talking, it dawned on me that so many of those gifts were from boyfriends or the mothers of boyfriends. The gifts were for the future life we were supposed to have together--the house, the children, the life together.
What, though, do you do with all that stuff from lives that never happened? What do I do with that "pudgie" tea set, the "collectible" storybook porcelain dolls, the other little knicknacks and stuff that I've accumulated over 20 years of broken relationships?
It's odd to think that I've had so many serious relationships--where there was some potential for settling down. So much unrealized potential. A lot of that comes from wanting to live my life my way and to do whatever I want when I want to do it.
That, however, is not the mentality that's conducive to settling down and having a family.
Steady Eddie wanted to take all those big plastic containers and put them into storage. I flat out emphatically said no. I want to keep them out, so I can go through them, and decide what of those lives I want to keep, and what would serve me better if it were on eBay.
I figured that the money I make I can put towards a master's degree--because, apparently, I'm going to need at least a master's if I'm going to be taken seriously at anything I do in my life (as far as career is concerned.)n Potentially, without a master's degree, people could keep asking me to give away all my hard-earned information for free. With a master's, I have a better than even chance of making some very good money. (that bothers me. it shouldn't be that way. but a bachelors'--even a highpowered one--isn't quite enough for me to be taken as seriously as I should be.)
And I need something of a career. I just don't feel like getting married any more, and my body's been giving me lots of signals that the sun's setting on the whole childbearing thing. It's a bit depressing, sure. In many ways I feel like I'm only in my 30's, but my body's telling me I'm definitely not. It's not all that bad, really--I'm at the beginning of a fascinating career and life. But it's certainly not going to take the usual path, as there won't be any pregnancies and retiring from the workaday world to raise children.
When I retire from the workaday world it will be because I'm too darned old and very tired. That probably won't be for another 30 years or so--but I've learned time goes by pretty fast once you're over 40. It's like time compresses--it's really strange.
One of my friends has a friend who can help me get rid of all my Spiderman comics. I know Barbie values, so I shouldn't have much of a problem getting rid of those. The china and silver will probably go, too. I don't have use for those. As I said, they're remnants of a life that didn't happen for me.
Not that I regret it. No. If that kind of life was so hard and unhappy for me, then I know it wasn't the life I was meant to have.
Oh, I've started losing some weight, too.
I have a box of craft stuff--lace and buttons and such. I'm going to sell the whole box outright. There's probably some woman with a daughter who would love all that stuff to make something pretty. Some doll clothes or a Halloween costume. I also have some strange art supplies--wood carving tools and pencils that I'll sell, too. I'm not going in that direction any more.
In an odd way, I feel like I'm picking up a thread of my life that I dropped back in 92-94 when I got sick and felt too old to go out any more. I'm picking up the dropped thread that was connected to the internet culture that I had something of a footnote part in the dancing of that culture into being. Tonight over dinner I was saying how difficult it is being born between two generations--esp. two that have had such an impact on changing American culture. I was too young to be a real Boomer--gad! there was no way I could have gone to Woodstock, and nobody I knew ever got drafted. The draft was over by the time I was a teen. But I was just slightly before Gen X--slightly above the age of the MIT and Stanford folks who were putting together the first raves and getting egregious tattoos. Still, I'm seeing how I have more in common with that generation than I do the Boomers--because I live within the landscape of the Internet. I blame it on unlimited internet access in college and no children.
Had I had children rather than going back to college, I'd be one of those parents wringing her hands over her son or daughter's MySpace profile.
Instead, I understand the space (yes, I have my own profile. Don't use it though)--understand that social networking is a way of learning how to converse in this space, how to get around it and negotiate it.
Which will be a very important skill in the frighteningly near (like tomorrow) future...
So, it's very clear to me that there's no turning back to the old lives that all that stuff in those containers represents. It's not just that the relationships are over and the boyfriends have all gone on and married other people. It's that my own adult life is very, very different than I expected it to be. It's not what any of my family members expected it to be either. It's not conventional at all, and in it there is little need for so many of those little geegaws and knick-knacks and gifties I've amassed.
Five years ago, though, I didn't know that. I figured I'd pick up that old life and all those things would have meaning and significance. But they don't. I can let them go now, move on to something different.
I can't say better--just different. There's no way I can know if the lives with those boyfriends--had I married them--would have been better. Those are simply threads in the tapestry of my life that got dropped some time ago--just the way I've gone and picked up the thread I dropped back in 92-94.
Who knows what will happen once those things leave my life....
The most important thing, I think, about the move has been dragging out of the cubbyholes a number of plastic containers that, for the past five years, have held the detritus of past relationships.
Steady Eddie remarked that a number of the things in those containers looked as if they were gifts. He's right--they were gifts at one time.
As we kept talking, it dawned on me that so many of those gifts were from boyfriends or the mothers of boyfriends. The gifts were for the future life we were supposed to have together--the house, the children, the life together.
What, though, do you do with all that stuff from lives that never happened? What do I do with that "pudgie" tea set, the "collectible" storybook porcelain dolls, the other little knicknacks and stuff that I've accumulated over 20 years of broken relationships?
It's odd to think that I've had so many serious relationships--where there was some potential for settling down. So much unrealized potential. A lot of that comes from wanting to live my life my way and to do whatever I want when I want to do it.
That, however, is not the mentality that's conducive to settling down and having a family.
Steady Eddie wanted to take all those big plastic containers and put them into storage. I flat out emphatically said no. I want to keep them out, so I can go through them, and decide what of those lives I want to keep, and what would serve me better if it were on eBay.
I figured that the money I make I can put towards a master's degree--because, apparently, I'm going to need at least a master's if I'm going to be taken seriously at anything I do in my life (as far as career is concerned.)n Potentially, without a master's degree, people could keep asking me to give away all my hard-earned information for free. With a master's, I have a better than even chance of making some very good money. (that bothers me. it shouldn't be that way. but a bachelors'--even a highpowered one--isn't quite enough for me to be taken as seriously as I should be.)
And I need something of a career. I just don't feel like getting married any more, and my body's been giving me lots of signals that the sun's setting on the whole childbearing thing. It's a bit depressing, sure. In many ways I feel like I'm only in my 30's, but my body's telling me I'm definitely not. It's not all that bad, really--I'm at the beginning of a fascinating career and life. But it's certainly not going to take the usual path, as there won't be any pregnancies and retiring from the workaday world to raise children.
When I retire from the workaday world it will be because I'm too darned old and very tired. That probably won't be for another 30 years or so--but I've learned time goes by pretty fast once you're over 40. It's like time compresses--it's really strange.
One of my friends has a friend who can help me get rid of all my Spiderman comics. I know Barbie values, so I shouldn't have much of a problem getting rid of those. The china and silver will probably go, too. I don't have use for those. As I said, they're remnants of a life that didn't happen for me.
Not that I regret it. No. If that kind of life was so hard and unhappy for me, then I know it wasn't the life I was meant to have.
Oh, I've started losing some weight, too.
I have a box of craft stuff--lace and buttons and such. I'm going to sell the whole box outright. There's probably some woman with a daughter who would love all that stuff to make something pretty. Some doll clothes or a Halloween costume. I also have some strange art supplies--wood carving tools and pencils that I'll sell, too. I'm not going in that direction any more.
In an odd way, I feel like I'm picking up a thread of my life that I dropped back in 92-94 when I got sick and felt too old to go out any more. I'm picking up the dropped thread that was connected to the internet culture that I had something of a footnote part in the dancing of that culture into being. Tonight over dinner I was saying how difficult it is being born between two generations--esp. two that have had such an impact on changing American culture. I was too young to be a real Boomer--gad! there was no way I could have gone to Woodstock, and nobody I knew ever got drafted. The draft was over by the time I was a teen. But I was just slightly before Gen X--slightly above the age of the MIT and Stanford folks who were putting together the first raves and getting egregious tattoos. Still, I'm seeing how I have more in common with that generation than I do the Boomers--because I live within the landscape of the Internet. I blame it on unlimited internet access in college and no children.
Had I had children rather than going back to college, I'd be one of those parents wringing her hands over her son or daughter's MySpace profile.
Instead, I understand the space (yes, I have my own profile. Don't use it though)--understand that social networking is a way of learning how to converse in this space, how to get around it and negotiate it.
Which will be a very important skill in the frighteningly near (like tomorrow) future...
So, it's very clear to me that there's no turning back to the old lives that all that stuff in those containers represents. It's not just that the relationships are over and the boyfriends have all gone on and married other people. It's that my own adult life is very, very different than I expected it to be. It's not what any of my family members expected it to be either. It's not conventional at all, and in it there is little need for so many of those little geegaws and knick-knacks and gifties I've amassed.
Five years ago, though, I didn't know that. I figured I'd pick up that old life and all those things would have meaning and significance. But they don't. I can let them go now, move on to something different.
I can't say better--just different. There's no way I can know if the lives with those boyfriends--had I married them--would have been better. Those are simply threads in the tapestry of my life that got dropped some time ago--just the way I've gone and picked up the thread I dropped back in 92-94.
Who knows what will happen once those things leave my life....
posted by Tish Grier at 11:47 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Tish,
I totally hear you about the generation thing. I'm on the bleeding edge of Gen X too.... for a long while we had no generational identity of our own. And like you, identify with the internet generation now. We grew up with the TV generation ahead of us, and it is fascinating to think about what life will be like twenty years from now for today's twenty-somethings who grew up taking the net for granted.
Morriss Partee
Hey Morriss--
It's nice to know another soul from the middle of the generational sandwich! great meeting you and catch up with you again soon.
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