The humanity of your parents
My parents frequently state the advantages of becoming parents at an early age. Of course, it pretty much ruins your professional life depending on your economic condition, but on the brighter side of things, it allows you do follow up with your children's life. I think I owe a lot of what I am because my parents were rather young when I was born (we have only a bit more than 20 years of difference). Dad reminisces a lot about back when they were young and reckless and mom frequently says something along the lines of "well, thinking back then, this or that thing we did was actually kinda dangerous". Just so that you have an idea, when I was 2 or 3 years old, dad bought a motorcycle, which he actually used to drive me to school. Granted, back then the city was (or seemed to be) quite safer. Nowadays transporting children younger than 12 years old in a motorcycle is actually against the law.
All things considered, one thing I have to say: it's easier to connect with your parents when the age gap between you and them is not so big. I say this in comparison with a couple of friends of mine, who are the same age as me, but whose parents have already crossed their 7th decade.
It was only recently that I started to figure the disadvantages of having parents that are only two decades older than yourself. I think I was drying the dishes as my mom washed them, and she almost dropped a plate. Her rheumatism was getting more frequent now.
That's when I realized that my parents were getting old.
So, this is one of the most terrifying things of being born from young parents, specially if you have a strong bond with them: you get to see their decay. And it's... awful, really. It's like seeing your super heroes losing battle after battle after a long winning streak. It's sad and painful and heart breaking. And perhaps seeing them old is not the worst part. The worst part is the knowledge that you can do nothing to stop it.
The interesting thing in this is that my parents seem to be going through the same thing. One of these days, mom sent me an e-mail saying that my grandpa got pneumonia. Later in that day, she mentioned that he stopped by and he was panting from the effort of walking from the doctor to our shop as if he had run a marathon. She said she never saw struggle to breathe like that before and, knowing the kind of person my grandfather is, it actually made me kinda sad as well.
Being completely conscious of getting old is tough job, really. You always see yourself as a teenager you always felt you were (at least I do), watching anime in your early 30s, hugging a stuffed animal in your sleep, bugging your mom with awful jokes... and then, suddenly, you start seeing age wrinkles in your face. Suddenly you realize you don't have the energy you did when you were a teenager and you see your parents looking more and more like your grandparents did. Seeing your parents, who were always so active and full of energy forgetting menial things and losing the strength in their limbs is sad, perhaps almost as much as realizing that the same thing is happening to you.
I know it is inevitable, I am quite aware that age comes to everyone, but man... seeing that either you or the ones you love are growing old, fragile and sick is still depressing as hell.
All things considered, one thing I have to say: it's easier to connect with your parents when the age gap between you and them is not so big. I say this in comparison with a couple of friends of mine, who are the same age as me, but whose parents have already crossed their 7th decade.
It was only recently that I started to figure the disadvantages of having parents that are only two decades older than yourself. I think I was drying the dishes as my mom washed them, and she almost dropped a plate. Her rheumatism was getting more frequent now.
That's when I realized that my parents were getting old.
So, this is one of the most terrifying things of being born from young parents, specially if you have a strong bond with them: you get to see their decay. And it's... awful, really. It's like seeing your super heroes losing battle after battle after a long winning streak. It's sad and painful and heart breaking. And perhaps seeing them old is not the worst part. The worst part is the knowledge that you can do nothing to stop it.
The interesting thing in this is that my parents seem to be going through the same thing. One of these days, mom sent me an e-mail saying that my grandpa got pneumonia. Later in that day, she mentioned that he stopped by and he was panting from the effort of walking from the doctor to our shop as if he had run a marathon. She said she never saw struggle to breathe like that before and, knowing the kind of person my grandfather is, it actually made me kinda sad as well.
Being completely conscious of getting old is tough job, really. You always see yourself as a teenager you always felt you were (at least I do), watching anime in your early 30s, hugging a stuffed animal in your sleep, bugging your mom with awful jokes... and then, suddenly, you start seeing age wrinkles in your face. Suddenly you realize you don't have the energy you did when you were a teenager and you see your parents looking more and more like your grandparents did. Seeing your parents, who were always so active and full of energy forgetting menial things and losing the strength in their limbs is sad, perhaps almost as much as realizing that the same thing is happening to you.
I know it is inevitable, I am quite aware that age comes to everyone, but man... seeing that either you or the ones you love are growing old, fragile and sick is still depressing as hell.