Lately I've Been Feeling Old

Lately I've been feeling old. Partly this is because of the aches and pains that have become a standard part of going to bed and waking up each day. I am, after all, rapidly closing on the half-century mark. It is mainly, however, because of an online game I play (Travian) where the average player is between male and between the ages of 18 and 25.

I've made friends in this game who are in that gray area between "real friends" — the people you know and interact with in real life — and "game friends" — the people you work well with in the game but don't have anything else to do with. These are friends with whom I chat on Skype or swap posts on the forums. We banter about the game, share bits of trivia, and occasionally talk about our lives.

As people usually do, we start from the assumption that the other person is basically like us (what psychologists identify as the "false consensus" bias) in a general abstract way. The other player usually assumes I'm about a guy about his age even though I make no attempt to hide the fact that I'm a woman who's nearly twice that. This isn't generally an issue — I find it rather amusing to be called "dude" and "bro" — until …

When the conversation turns to something that causes me to mention my adult children, I often encounter shock. Even if I've told my exact age at some point, these friends often forget it in the context of the game (which I happen to play as well as anyone of their own generation) and between other topics of conversation. But when I bring up my children they suddenly realize that I'm as old as their parents, and parents aren't usually people you share friends with. After that I see a change creep into their conversation, as I suddenly my age begins to trump our common interests in defining for them who I am. That really does make me feel old in a way that simply accumulating more birthdays does not.

A Brief Sense of Accomplishment

There are many times when we feel like parenting failures — times when a child makes a poor choice, or when our own weaknesses cause us to let our children down — but have you ever had a time when, at least for a moment, you felt like a parenting success?

I had such a moment the other night. I'd just finished having dinner with my teenage son. It was time for my evening walk. Normally my husband and I go out for a short walk after dinner and enjoy the night settling in on the neighborhood. We eat dinner rather late, so even in the summer it's usually dusk by the time we get out. This time of year it's often quite dark.

On this night my husband was a hundred miles away visiting his sister, but I still planned to walk alone. I didn't have any fears about going out by myself after dark because our neighborhood is quiet, we've lived there over twenty years, and I wouldn't be more than a mile from the house. Apparently my son had his doubts. Normally he'd use my walk time as a chance to pounce on our main computer, which is faster and has a larger monitor than his laptop, but instead he volunteered to go with me. That was when I felt, for a short time at least, that maybe I was doing something right after all.

We walked a little more briskly than I would have with my husband — undoubtedly good for me — but we still talked. Maybe we didn't say anything important, not that I can remember anyway, but we still spent a few moments sharing with each other. I hope I remember that walk for a long time.

It Could Almost Be Autumn

This is my first blog post. Will it be something momentous and profound? No, I'm just going to talk about the weather.

I love this time of year. The evenings are crisp but not cold, and it's cool enough to wear a sweater. I love wearing sweaters, especially soft loosely-knit sweaters. I remember two particular cowl neck sweaters — a brown one that was a favorite of Dave's and that I had my sorority composite photo taken in, and another that was the only yellow sweater I ever thought I looked good in. Those sweaters have long since retired and I miss them. I hope cowl necks will soon come into fashion again so that I can find replacements.

So, the weather's been great, and Dave and I have been going out for a walk every evening just after sunset. We look at the darkening sky and try to identify the constellations. We don't usually come up with very many, between the light pollution and our limited knowledge of the sky. Wait 'til our old friend Orion appears, then we'll point him out each night and comment on the change in his position as if we knew what we were talking about.

One night on our walk we heard a live rock band playing — very audibly! — several blocks away. On another recent night the trees were bright silhouettes against a dark sky, caught in the glare of lights from the soccer fields at the township park about one mile away. Tonight, however, everything was quiet and as dark as it gets living within the Eastern megalopolis. Some light clouds showed pale in reflected light agains the dark sky, and crickets provided the loudest sound we heard as we walked. The next loudest sound was a faint noise halfway between a jingle and a creak that seemed to be following us. After a while I determined that is was a noise made by my right sneaker; the left one for some reason being silent.

It was a lovely night and the walk ended all too soon.