As I Approach 60, Young People Have Become My Greatest Teachers
They don’t put up with crap from family members
Growing older feels like finally reaching the last chapter of a book I’ve been reading all my life. Everything gets revealed. Everything gets cleared up. Everything makes sense at long last.
I’m ready to close that book now as I approach 60, knowing it will always be a part of who I am but not letting it consume me anymore. I’m now ready to pick up a new one and start a fresh chapter.
The psychologist Dr. Robin Smith said: “Adulthood is to finish the unfinished business of childhood.” I agree with her but didn’t expect it would take me four decades to accomplish it!
I’ve made a lot of strides recently, though, thanks in large part to my four badass nieces who are all 20-something. They’ve taught me that each one of us gets the glorious opportunity to assemble the cast of characters we want in our life story.
When we’re children, we’re stuck with the family we’re born into. But, when we become adults, we have the autonomy to decide who the main characters in our narrative will be and who will be relegated to the background.
Like many young people today, my nieces have built their lives around a tight circle of comrades. They’ve…
