Testing 1, 2, 3
Someone posted on my forum recently about a test some of us had back in high school that determined what we should be, professionally, when we went on to bigger and better things. Assuming by bigger and better things, of course, that high school wasn't the peak of your existence.
O!Mi!Gawd! Can you imagine what life is like NOW for those for whom high school WAS the peak of their existence? I mean, I actually dated a guy for whom University was the peak of his existence - but we were in University at the time, so... for me it was a bit of a vicarious peak of MY existence, "Wow. He's actually enjoying this...". But it's always left me unsettled that life ever after was, for him, a slide down from BMOC to... well... one of thousands of ambulance chasers in Toronto.
Meanwhile, I'd KILL to be an ambulance chaser in Toronto. Or even IN Toronto. Gawd. Ottawa. The city that boring forgot.
But for me, life just gets better with age - it really does. It is ALWAYS looking up. I can't think of any period of my life that I look back on and don't think, "Thank Gawd I'm here - now - and not stuck back there - then". Although, there are certain quips I would like to be able to go back in time to make - with the benefit of my much superiour quiptitude now. But such is life - most of it stuck on, "I know you are, but what am I?" and "No, YOU shut up!" - instead of, "Haha! You've got toilet paper stuck to your shoe" and "It's "its" not "it's" - Einstein".
I regularly taunt my kids with how great it is being older and wiser, too. And it's true. But I can remember what it was like being a kid (unlike many adults I know who seem to remember childhood as fun and carefree instead of the heartless gulag it was) and it was the worst, really. It was for me, anyway, and I had a relatively stable and secure childhood - just no rights or freedom. Of course, kids today DO have rights, so that's one thing that's a bit different. Still, they're under enormous pressure to do well, "If you fail urban geography, students, you may as well kiss your futures in the Urban Planning Department at City Hall goodbye, so listen up because I'll be telling you in class tomorrow exactly what you need to know to get a passing grade on the exam."
I'm serious. Imagine the pressure of being led to the water AND made to drink it, sip by sip, until you're quenched. I couldn't have coped with that in high school. Give me the old, "None of you will amount to anything anyway so you may as well fail now as later" any day and let me overachieve to prove everybody wrong. And then completely lose my confidence just in time for University so that a job as a temporary file clerk seems like a step up the ladder and a job as permanent file clerk, well, it doesn't get much better'n that - does it. How could it?
Anyway, the benefit of whatever age I'm at, doing whatever it is I'm doing now, is that for me - it only gets better, which is something I enjoy imparting to my kids. For me, the joy of adulthood, earning my own money, making my own decisions, and not having to answer to anyone is a constant high. I just don't know if they really understand that because kids today already don't have to answer to adults the way we had to, back in the olden days. It seemed to me that we were always having to answer to somebody - even if we weren't doing anything, "Don't think you can just lay around doing nothing with your nose in a book all summer! Those baseboards need dusting!" Adults were constantly on our cases about this or that - and I was a good student who never got in trouble, too - but in no way was I ever let off the hook for not being an adult with all those onerous responsibilities they were always complaining about. "Just you wait. Enjoy being young now, kid - because it's downhill after that. Nothing but work, work, work. Now go buy me a pack of smokes, and when you're done doing that, I know a lawn that needs mowing."
Tsk, tsk. I dunno but I wonder if kids today will appreciate the freedom afforded by adulthood as much as I do or if they're spoiled by being treated like human beings with rights - now. As Gilda Radner said, "It's always something", I guess.
