Letter to a Twenty-something…

I am perfectly comfortable and forgiven by society when I crawl into fresh sheets, fluffy pillows and a down comforter at 8:30pm. I’m 59 years old and I have only my own standards to adhere to.

You are living in a time when the hours are to be used, used up and life is to be lived wild. For you to succumb to bed at this hour on a Friday night, or even just TV, seems a travesty. You Loser! It’s Friday! It’s The Weekend! You are expected to go out, find love, laughter, companionship. It’s what you yearned for all through High School. To be independent, to go out, stay out late, be seen and never hear the word curfew again.

And that’s OK. We’ve even named a restaurant for you – T.G.I.F – Friday’s! The whole world wants to celebrate the end of the work week in style. Get your weekend on! What are your plans?

Though I sympathize and remember exactly what that feels like, I feel no need to conform. I have earned the ability to let the  pressure go and rejoice in the creature comforts of soft repose with a book.

In your twenties you think you need a solid plan. You suddenly aren’t a kid anymore and even is you could fall back on your parents for support, emotional and financial, it would feel like a failure, like you didn’t make the leap to independence. You have yet to master the art of making time work for you and are constantly fighting the way it speeds up when you have things to accomplish during the day, and slows down when you are waiting for the sun to break through on your dreams.

And that’s OK. Dreams sometimes take a life-time but washing the dishes doesn’t. You are learning to carve time into increments of your own making, rather than being at the mercy of some giant schedule that parents, schools and the world at large seemed to control for most of your life. Just don’t let the pressure of time make you blind to the moment.

Pardon me while I try to figure out how to make Roasted, Salted Peanuts in the shell cause a little bit less of a mess when I eat them in bed…

Sky-Blue-Pink and the Hive…