My closest coworker is a fantastic girl, fifteen years my junior. I have a lot of fun talking with her about music and fashion, and she seems to have a lot of fun laughing when I know all the words to Pet Shop Boys songs that play on our Muzak.
We were talking about the musicians we had dated, yesterday. It was interesting to see how our stories of adorable commitement-phobes went (then last night, I saw the How I Met Your Mother with Robin and Simon and hid my expressions of oh my god, I did that from my husband), and made me think how silly it is when we are surprised to meet someone whose experience matches or mirrors our own. After all, aren’t there a finite number of experiences a human being can have?
I’m an only child, and was an only grandchild on one side of the family, so I am strongly influenced by socialization to believe that I am a unique snowflake. Marriage and motherhood have beaten a lot of that out of me. Actually, I think the breast pump sucked a lot of my individuality out along with the milk I was expressing for my newborn. It certainly drained me of my humility. The dignity had already been stripped away when the workmen came in to fix the call button attached to my bed while I was in the pushing phase of said newborn’s delivery.
Come to that, I may never have had much dignity. I’ve always been willing to throw myself under the bus for a laugh or to make a point. It’s why I excelled at improv.
One of my favorite blogs to read is by Pamela Ribon, author and television comedy writer. Lately, Pamela has been posting the writings of her fifteen-year-old lovelorn self. It is beautiful and horrifying, and an absolutely perfect trainwreck of creative, romantic teen angst.
This morning, I shot her an email and admitted to my own hyperbolic, hysterical teen scribbles. I told her to take heart, that I was pretty sure she had never quoted Simon LeBon as a poet. I still cringe remembering a particular break-up note I wrote to a boy who wasn’t even dating me exclusively. I left it on the windshield of his car like a freaking moron. God, I was a moron.
I might still be a moron. We’ll have to see what I think of me in another 20 years. Right now, I am really enjoying my age and enjoying the company of my younger coworker. I get the vicarious thrill of hearing about the fun things I remember, without having to deal with dating and school, and car trouble, and the general yuck that comes before 30.
