Where do you want to be 10 years from now?
In my last post I said I felt like I'd spent the weekend with my parents. But after thinking about that, I realize that my description wasn't accurate. I feel like I spent the weekend with my mom/best friend and one of her friends who I've known forever but still don't know too well.
My friend's husband is old, not so much in age (although he is older than we are by not a few years) but in personality and demeanor. He wears a suit to work, with a tie, and clips his flipphone onto his belt. He looks like a dad. He wore a bright red sweater to dinner, the type that my grandmother buys my dad for his birthday and I try to stop him from wearing in public. He takes everything seriously, knows a lot about a lot of different topics and isn't shy about sharing his knowledge with you. He consults waiters about wine lists and says please and thank you. In sum, he's old-fashioned.
This contrasts SO greatly with how I remember my friend, who was always the "bad girl" in high school, sneaking off to drink on the weekends and misbehaving in class--stuff I never, ever did. She's so serious now, not in a bad way, just in a different way. We still get along the same as always, maybe even better, because I think she's now more like me, in terms of personality, than she ever was.
But their friends have kids. They have shabbat candles set up in their house, and a breakfront showcasing their wedding crystal, and an extra freezer in their basement, and a fenced-in yard for the dog to run around and poop in. They seem so happy, and so intent on "The Future."
Very few of my other friends are like this; we all seem to live in the moment and while we have jobs and responsibilities, we still go out drinking and stay up late and use curse words. I always thought I was the progressive one among my high school friends, deserting the conformity of cliques and dress codes for a liberal lifestyle unheard of in the insular world I left. And I still think I was. But now I wonder if I've continued on in that world while the others have bypassed me (and maybe that lifestyle, partially if not entirely) and moved into actual adult lives, while I'm the one conforming to some sort of mid-twenties hipster profile (I'm really not a hipster though) .
My friend and I were talking about having kids, and she said that while she was ready, I wasn't because I wasn't "settled" yet. When she said this, I wondered what "settled" meant, and if I wanted to classify myself as such. I'm married. I own an apartment. I have a stable job. But she's right--I'm not "settled" in the same way that she is.
Nevertheless, their "settled" life seemed so comfortable--jobs, volunteer groups, sisterhoods, dinner clubs, etc., but also perhaps too familiar. When I imagine the future, it doesn't always feature breakfronts and dining room sets. I still can't figure out if it's a taste of the life I've been escaping from for all these years, or the life I want for the future, or both. At any rate, it was definitely a novelty and made me feel homesick--maybe nostalgic is a better word--for something I seem to have (deliberately?) lost over the years.
My friend's husband is old, not so much in age (although he is older than we are by not a few years) but in personality and demeanor. He wears a suit to work, with a tie, and clips his flipphone onto his belt. He looks like a dad. He wore a bright red sweater to dinner, the type that my grandmother buys my dad for his birthday and I try to stop him from wearing in public. He takes everything seriously, knows a lot about a lot of different topics and isn't shy about sharing his knowledge with you. He consults waiters about wine lists and says please and thank you. In sum, he's old-fashioned.
This contrasts SO greatly with how I remember my friend, who was always the "bad girl" in high school, sneaking off to drink on the weekends and misbehaving in class--stuff I never, ever did. She's so serious now, not in a bad way, just in a different way. We still get along the same as always, maybe even better, because I think she's now more like me, in terms of personality, than she ever was.
But their friends have kids. They have shabbat candles set up in their house, and a breakfront showcasing their wedding crystal, and an extra freezer in their basement, and a fenced-in yard for the dog to run around and poop in. They seem so happy, and so intent on "The Future."
Very few of my other friends are like this; we all seem to live in the moment and while we have jobs and responsibilities, we still go out drinking and stay up late and use curse words. I always thought I was the progressive one among my high school friends, deserting the conformity of cliques and dress codes for a liberal lifestyle unheard of in the insular world I left. And I still think I was. But now I wonder if I've continued on in that world while the others have bypassed me (and maybe that lifestyle, partially if not entirely) and moved into actual adult lives, while I'm the one conforming to some sort of mid-twenties hipster profile (I'm really not a hipster though) .
My friend and I were talking about having kids, and she said that while she was ready, I wasn't because I wasn't "settled" yet. When she said this, I wondered what "settled" meant, and if I wanted to classify myself as such. I'm married. I own an apartment. I have a stable job. But she's right--I'm not "settled" in the same way that she is.
Nevertheless, their "settled" life seemed so comfortable--jobs, volunteer groups, sisterhoods, dinner clubs, etc., but also perhaps too familiar. When I imagine the future, it doesn't always feature breakfronts and dining room sets. I still can't figure out if it's a taste of the life I've been escaping from for all these years, or the life I want for the future, or both. At any rate, it was definitely a novelty and made me feel homesick--maybe nostalgic is a better word--for something I seem to have (deliberately?) lost over the years.
posted by Emil at 4:14 PM
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