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very strange feeling
Topic Started: Apr 21 2006, 06:04 PM (282 Views)
pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
I've been coming to a very strange understanding this year. It's not bad, but it's just really weird.

I'm not a kid anymore.

Yeah, I know, I'm 19 years old, and I'm still very young, but I don't mean "kid" in terms of age.


I haven't seen my older brother in almost 2 years. He lives in Chicago, with his girlfriend, and he works full-time at a drug store.

I myself have been living at the university these past 6 months or so, and haven't seen the rest of my family very often. I live with a roommate, in a dormatory, whom I had never met before we were living together; our studies are very different - he's an engineer in a navy-training program, and I'm a musicologist.


When I was a kid, we all lived in one house - both of my brothers, my sister, my parents, and me. We slept in bedrooms down the hall from each other (until I was 10 or so I even shared a room with my younger brother), and we ate dinner together every night (except maybe in high school, we each started to become more concerned with our own plans). My siblings and I went to the same schools and studied the same subjects with the same teachers. We got in fights, and we also played together.

When I was a kid, if I happened to see my sister one afternoon, we had nothing to talk about - because we saw each other every day. Now, if I call the house and my sister happens to answer the phone, we still have nothing to talk about - because we don't know where to begin.

Whenever I do go home to visit my family, my younger brother for some reason always has a new hairstyle, and my sister always seems to be a little bit taller. Something will come up in a discussion, and I'll say, "Wow! When did this happen?" and the response will be, *slight pause*, "Oh, about a month ago..."


Last week, I went home to celebrate Passover with my family. We had two big dinners - the first night, we went over to the home of another family, and there were about 15 or 20 of us (including the two families, college friends, uncles and grandparents, etc), and then the second night they came to our house for dinner. Then, and whenever I happen to be around adults, I talk with the adults. I partake in conversation with them, and I actually enjoy it. When I was a kid - even 2 years ago - I would have been completely bored talking with adults. They always talked about stupid, unimportant, boring things. Now, not only do I find it interesting and entertaining to talk with adults, but I can't stand to talk with the teenagers! I am so bored talking with them!


It's really weird.


I think I started to notice a difference a few years ago. I was in New York celebrating Passover with the extended family. (We did that every now and then - my mom's aunt and uncle always had 40+ people for dinner the first two nights.) I made a comment to my great-aunt about how the house all of a sudden seemed so different to me - when I was younger, we used to run around and play games, and built things out of blocks and legos, and play baseball outside, and walk around with gameboys. All of a sudden, I found myself not doing any of those things any more, and I was walking around alone, thinking to myself, or talking with adults. It was a strange realization, and my great-aunt was shocked when I mentioned it to her. She agreed with me that there was a difference, but she herself hadn't noticed.


Maybe many of you won't really know what I'm talking about, either because it's been so long since you were a kid, or because you're still a kid.


Ha, I'm getting that same feeling now that I got last week when I was looking at those old photos. I won't cry this time, though.
Sam
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Welcome aboard, Sam.

:)




"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
That was a darn fine post, Sam.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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AlbertaCrude
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Dwain's right, and don't forget to thank all you grandparents for giving you such wonderful parents.
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
Quote:
 
Maybe many of you won't really know what I'm talking about, either because it's been so long since you were a kid, or because you're still a kid.


PJ, no matter how old we get, if we're smart we keep some of that kid in us alive. I assure you that everyone here over the age of 30 can remember what you describe just like it was yesterday. In fact, it never stops - so it *was* just yesterday.

Now - add to that uneasy feeling the realization that people you've known and loved and relied on for decades are fading and may not be there much longer, that the time it takes to get from one Monday to the next keeps getting shorter and shorter, that many if not most of the things you told yourself you would do in life you still haven't done, and the fear hits you that there may not be enough time left to do them.

Strange feelings like this will be a part of your life from now until the day you die, PJ. The reasons for them will change, but at no point will you be plowing new ground - you are becoming a grownup.
Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
Quote:
 
Dwain's right, and don't forget to thank all you grandparents for giving you such wonderful parents.


That's the other thing. My grandmother (dad's mom) died a few years ago. My other grandmother (mom's mom) has been living in a nursing home the last several years, suffering from Alzheimer's, and doesn't really do much anymore.

Two of my teachers, whom I respected greatly, have passed away. I went to one of their funerals last summer.

I am actually friends with both my current and previous piano teachers. I was sitting outside the music school the other night just reading, and my teacher came by, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, walking his dog. Whenever I go home to visit my family, I visit my old piano teacher who always greets me with a hug and a present. My university professors, when sending an e-mail to the class, sign their letters "Rachael" and "Charles" and "Alex."

I actually know a little bit, and people actually learn a little from me. A few days ago, a 50-some year old woman who has been a member at Piano World for just a couple weeks mistakenly thought that I was leaving the forum, and she sent me a private message to tell me that I'm one of the best, if not the best, poster at PW and she learns a lot from me and I should please stay.

Here I am on this forum, with people twice my age, discussing evolution and creationsim, religion and politics, philosophy, sex, and *gasp* some (now dead) comedian from the 1970's.

Richard Pryor is dead. John Candy is dead. Maxwell Smart is dead. There's already been a sequal to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I can drive a car... by myself, too. Well, when I happen to be visiting my parents, and they happen to let me drive their cars. If I want to go somewhere, I don't have to ask permission, or work around other peoples' schedules. I just get up and go - I walk, or I take the bus.

In fact, now I will just get up and take the bus to the music school and play piano. Because I feel like it. Don't worry, I'll be back before midnight. :wink:
Sam
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justme
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HOLY CARP!!!
God bless you, Sam.

Thank you for sharing. You're a fine young man. I feel blessed knowing you. Your parents must be very proud of you.

I, too, experienced this sort of epiphany when I was 19 so I do remember what your feeling. I always thought 19 was a difficult age. I was very frustrated with missing my family but wanting to grow away from them too. I found that one can never grow too far away from their family when it's as close as mine is. Your's sounds the same.
"Men sway more towards hussies." G-D3
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The 89th Key
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PJ, one clear sign that you aren't a kid anymore...is when you go to family reunions, and you see all the behind-the-scenes drama. Relationship problems people are having with their spouses....rumors and gossip....grandma doesn't really like my dad, stuff like that.

Ok...that sounded like a joke, and that hasn't even specifically happened in my family.........but my point is that you'll start seeing the politics and mature stuff adults have to deal with. Not just "where do I sit for dinner". :P
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Horace
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HOLY CARP!!!
I never had one of these epiphanies because I never had a close supportive family (though it was not abusive either). I envy those who are (or even were) friends with their family, that must be a very special bond.
As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good?
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
The 89th Key
Apr 21 2006, 06:55 PM
PJ, one clear sign that you aren't a kid anymore...is when you go to family reunions, and you see all the behind-the-scenes drama.

Or....... when you go to family reunions hoping to pick up chicks........... :D
Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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The 89th Key
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I don't live in the south anymore. ;)
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apple
one of the angels
19 was a very good year
it behooves me to behold
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
The 89th Key
Apr 21 2006, 07:02 PM
I don't live in the south anymore. ;)

:veryangry:

:sombrero:
Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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JBryan
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I am the grey one
Quote:
 
19 was a very good year


It might have been if I could remember it.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Nina
Senior Carp
There's also something weird about realizing that your parents aren't all that together (either). When you're a kid you think they can do no wrong. When you become an adult, you know they can and often do make mistakes. But if all is well, you love them anyway.

I often have weird thoughts where I think about my parents and how we interacted when they were the same age as I am. At the time I thought they were so old and wise. So how is it that now that I'm the same age, I'm young and just feeling my way along one day at a time? :silly:
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Nina
Apr 21 2006, 08:34 PM
There's also something weird about realizing that your parents aren't all that together (either). When you're a kid you think they can do no wrong. When you become an adult, you know they can and often do make mistakes. But if all is well, you love them anyway.

I often have weird thoughts where I think about my parents and how we interacted when they were the same age as I am. At the time I thought they were so old and wise. So how is it that now that I'm the same age, I'm young and just feeling my way along one day at a time? :silly:

Nina: Your reflections reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

The dogma lives loudly within me.
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