Endless Summer
Okay, so this isn't really a debate topic, it's more of just a "how do you feel" type of thing. A chance for people to offer their opinions on something very non-political.
So I was listening to This American Life on NPR today, and one of the stories was about a girl who was going to summer camp for the last time, before she became too old. She was thinking about all the things she'd be doing for the last time, and how it felt like the end of childhood.
It got me thinking about my own life, and how things have changed.
I turned 25 last month. Still young, but it sounds older and older every day. I've started a new job. My old job was great fun. I got to play with tools and work with my hands. My new job is also very cool, but by comparison, it's more paper pushing and number crunching and corporate type work. I can see myself doing this job for a great many years, but part of me misses that feeling of playing with toys at work that came at my old job. I'm in graduate school. It's still school, but it's more something that grown up type people do. When I was tutoring this past summer, my supervisor tried to make sure that the kids I was tutoring would refer to me as Mr. Narain, mostly because he wanted kids to treat me more like a teacher than a substitute. I never got over how odd it sounded to me. We bought a house, and I moved into it. If all goes well, I've moved out of the nest for good. Also a big deal.
I still know the guys I grew up with. One of them is married. One is taking the Bar at the end of the month. One is a police officer. And we lost one. These aren't really things that seem like they happen to kids. These are things that happen more to grown ups. I own part of a house and my name appears on the title for my car. I have my own health and dental coverage. I even have an IRA and investments and assets and such. How trippy grown up weird is that? You have to remember, I still watch cartoons, so it's very hard for me to square this stuff with the rest of my reality.
I know you are really only as young as you feel. My buddy icon is Michelangelo because I really am an immature pizza eating party kid at heart. I read comics every day if I can. I drive fast with loud music. I keep model planes, stuffed toys, Magic cards and sports pennants in my room. And I still think of myself as a kid, mostly because in most circles outside of school, I AM the kid, or at least, one of the youngest.
But, I can't help but feel that somehow, I'm becoming (or supposed to be becoming) an adult of some kind. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't even really know when or how it happened. Maybe it had something to do with graduating college and earning a paycheck. Maybe it was buying a house. Maybe it was watching someone I've known since I was six get married. Maybe it was losing someone I've known since I was three and being forced to remember that life is short and summer doesn't last forever. Maybe it was all of these things happening over the past two years.
And then I have to square those pictures with getting together with my friends and sharing a history that streches back almost twenty years. When I'm with Aaron and PJ, it's easy to feel like we're back in first grade, screwing around at recess. Then I have to remember that that was almost twenty years ago. We were six. We're twenty five now. We're not the scrawny little kids we were back then. The school we went to was bought back by the school district. Many of the teachers we had have long since retired. The little patch of concrete that made up our dodgeball court is occupied by a brand new generation of kids who will imagine it to be whatever their hearts desire.
I have to square one other thing too. I will be twenty six next year. When that happens, I will have lived half my life without my father. And after that, every year that passes means that more of my life has been spent without him than with him. I suppose losing him forced me to try and make an attempt at growing up. And maybe that plays on my mind more than I give credit for. Since he died, I feel like I've been pretending, playing dress-up and putting on a show for everyone to show them that I'm fine, that I can handle it, that I can run things. My father was the eldest son, and I am his only son. In the Hindu tradition, I'm responsible for carrying on the family line. I'm supposed to take care of my mom and my sister. And I suppose that I've been trying to pretend that I've been doing this since I was thirteen, and everyone told me that I was supposed to. Maybe now that I'm earning a real paycheck, I can do that. I don't know how I'm exactly supposed to do it living half an hour away, but I'm going to pretend that having half the paycheck go home does that, because I've also had to learn, growing up, that I can't really live under the same roof as my mom and my sister. That also sadly seems to be a part of growing up, drifting away from the family. I can remember a time that I couldn't sleep without my mother in the house, or being sad when my sister went away to college. Now, I seek every excuse to be away from them, if only for a few minutes at a time. I've become adept at becoming invisible and unavailable. When I'm away from home, talking to them on the phone feels like a chore, rather than just something natural. I've become accustomed to feeling as though anything that makes me happy is probably something that takes happiness away from them, so I either have to lie about it, or feel guilty. In the back of my mind, I have to remind myself that these kinds of things are things I used to know that grown ups did sometimes, and promised myself I'd try not to do. But sadly, I do them, and feel no remorse, and find that perhaps I've simply grown old rather than grown up.
So enough introspection. This was supposed to be a discussion of some sort, rather than me going on and on (which I suppose happens on occasion in this little corner of the internet).
The questions before the F-List are:
When did you feel you became an adult or came of age or grew up or stopped being a kid? Are there things you associate with childhood that you feel you've had to leave behind? Are there things you miss? Are there things you don't miss? Are there things you like about being an adult? What is your definition of an adult? Is Rishi just being too emo for his own good? Should he shut the heck up? Should someone be dispatched to forcibly silence him?
DISCUSS!!!
So I was listening to This American Life on NPR today, and one of the stories was about a girl who was going to summer camp for the last time, before she became too old. She was thinking about all the things she'd be doing for the last time, and how it felt like the end of childhood.
It got me thinking about my own life, and how things have changed.
I turned 25 last month. Still young, but it sounds older and older every day. I've started a new job. My old job was great fun. I got to play with tools and work with my hands. My new job is also very cool, but by comparison, it's more paper pushing and number crunching and corporate type work. I can see myself doing this job for a great many years, but part of me misses that feeling of playing with toys at work that came at my old job. I'm in graduate school. It's still school, but it's more something that grown up type people do. When I was tutoring this past summer, my supervisor tried to make sure that the kids I was tutoring would refer to me as Mr. Narain, mostly because he wanted kids to treat me more like a teacher than a substitute. I never got over how odd it sounded to me. We bought a house, and I moved into it. If all goes well, I've moved out of the nest for good. Also a big deal.
I still know the guys I grew up with. One of them is married. One is taking the Bar at the end of the month. One is a police officer. And we lost one. These aren't really things that seem like they happen to kids. These are things that happen more to grown ups. I own part of a house and my name appears on the title for my car. I have my own health and dental coverage. I even have an IRA and investments and assets and such. How trippy grown up weird is that? You have to remember, I still watch cartoons, so it's very hard for me to square this stuff with the rest of my reality.
I know you are really only as young as you feel. My buddy icon is Michelangelo because I really am an immature pizza eating party kid at heart. I read comics every day if I can. I drive fast with loud music. I keep model planes, stuffed toys, Magic cards and sports pennants in my room. And I still think of myself as a kid, mostly because in most circles outside of school, I AM the kid, or at least, one of the youngest.
But, I can't help but feel that somehow, I'm becoming (or supposed to be becoming) an adult of some kind. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't even really know when or how it happened. Maybe it had something to do with graduating college and earning a paycheck. Maybe it was buying a house. Maybe it was watching someone I've known since I was six get married. Maybe it was losing someone I've known since I was three and being forced to remember that life is short and summer doesn't last forever. Maybe it was all of these things happening over the past two years.
And then I have to square those pictures with getting together with my friends and sharing a history that streches back almost twenty years. When I'm with Aaron and PJ, it's easy to feel like we're back in first grade, screwing around at recess. Then I have to remember that that was almost twenty years ago. We were six. We're twenty five now. We're not the scrawny little kids we were back then. The school we went to was bought back by the school district. Many of the teachers we had have long since retired. The little patch of concrete that made up our dodgeball court is occupied by a brand new generation of kids who will imagine it to be whatever their hearts desire.
I have to square one other thing too. I will be twenty six next year. When that happens, I will have lived half my life without my father. And after that, every year that passes means that more of my life has been spent without him than with him. I suppose losing him forced me to try and make an attempt at growing up. And maybe that plays on my mind more than I give credit for. Since he died, I feel like I've been pretending, playing dress-up and putting on a show for everyone to show them that I'm fine, that I can handle it, that I can run things. My father was the eldest son, and I am his only son. In the Hindu tradition, I'm responsible for carrying on the family line. I'm supposed to take care of my mom and my sister. And I suppose that I've been trying to pretend that I've been doing this since I was thirteen, and everyone told me that I was supposed to. Maybe now that I'm earning a real paycheck, I can do that. I don't know how I'm exactly supposed to do it living half an hour away, but I'm going to pretend that having half the paycheck go home does that, because I've also had to learn, growing up, that I can't really live under the same roof as my mom and my sister. That also sadly seems to be a part of growing up, drifting away from the family. I can remember a time that I couldn't sleep without my mother in the house, or being sad when my sister went away to college. Now, I seek every excuse to be away from them, if only for a few minutes at a time. I've become adept at becoming invisible and unavailable. When I'm away from home, talking to them on the phone feels like a chore, rather than just something natural. I've become accustomed to feeling as though anything that makes me happy is probably something that takes happiness away from them, so I either have to lie about it, or feel guilty. In the back of my mind, I have to remind myself that these kinds of things are things I used to know that grown ups did sometimes, and promised myself I'd try not to do. But sadly, I do them, and feel no remorse, and find that perhaps I've simply grown old rather than grown up.
So enough introspection. This was supposed to be a discussion of some sort, rather than me going on and on (which I suppose happens on occasion in this little corner of the internet).
The questions before the F-List are:
When did you feel you became an adult or came of age or grew up or stopped being a kid? Are there things you associate with childhood that you feel you've had to leave behind? Are there things you miss? Are there things you don't miss? Are there things you like about being an adult? What is your definition of an adult? Is Rishi just being too emo for his own good? Should he shut the heck up? Should someone be dispatched to forcibly silence him?
DISCUSS!!!