It wasn’t quite this bad, or good.
This weekend was decidedly better than the last, but the saga of my bathroom isn’t over … I spent all of last week talking about it though so I’ll avoid the topic. Thursday of last week I left work early and headed down to visit my parents for a couple days. I work a 9/80 work schedule so I have every other Friday off. I packed everything up, Lucy jumped in the car and we headed out.
I like my parents. I hold them both in high regard and have formed close relationships with both of them individually, and together. Knowing how many people my age have less-than-stellar relationships with their parents, I consider myself lucky that my family life is as good as it is. I mean sure there are the usual familial stresses that everyone experiences with their family (because you can’t really have a group of people spend that much time together without having there be personality clashes or disagreements), but by and large my family is functional.
So I drove down there, spent some time with my Mom talking about things that she’s involved in and dealing with. I went for a bike ride with my Dad Saturday morning as I usually do when I visit. And I helped them both with various things around the house, ranging from technical support to manual labor.
While they were at work on Friday I washed and waxed my car and did the windows. In the 10 years I’ve owned it I’ve never taken this car to the car wash. I don’t know why, but paying for someone else to wash my car always seems like a waste of time and money since I can do it myself. That said, I only ever do it when I’m at my parents’ place so it’s not a terribly frequent thing. This time it was in dire need because it rained a week or two ago near where I live and work.
To call it rain is really generous though. It didn’t so much rain as it did spatter a couple times over the course of a day and then clear up again. My car was dirty to begin with, but it was uniformly dirty and due to its color it didn’t really show the dirt very much. This joke of a rainstorm though rained just enough to mess up the dirt, but not enough to actually rinse it off. So the end result was a dirty car that looked downright filthy. So I washed it.
Visiting my parents generally gives me time to think. I’m old enough now that I’ve had about 10 years of being an adult and interacting with them as such. I’m hearing about some of the things they deal with in their lives, and I discuss with them the things that I’m dealing with in mine. Something occurred to me yesterday: the older I get the more complicated and difficult I realize things actually are. Between their situations and mine, there really is no clear answer to almost any quandary or problem.
I talked about it some in another post, but it’s really proving true as more time passes. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Think about how involved and complicated an individual you are, and then consider that if you’re dealing with just one other person that complexity doesn’t just double, it increases exponentially. It’s not just your complexities or theirs, it’s yours and theirs and the seemingly limitless ways that they might interact or play off of each other. The more I think about this the more it astounds me just how remarkable it is to find relationships that really work and last.
I didn’t have anywhere I was going with this, but it’s a thought I had and it stuck with me. The older I get the more convoluted all my decisions become because I’m increasingly aware of the consequences of those decisions. Maybe I’m the only one who has had this experience as they age … what realizations have you had?
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weezafish
September 17, 2012 at 7:17 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Sorry about the rain. Thoughtful post, even if you weren’t going anywhere with it! I’m glad to be close to my family too, those relationships take the hardest work normally so high five you for being okay with your folks! Like you say, a lot of people struggle. I wrote a page on my blog about the stuff I’ve learned with experience, and wish I’d known back then so to speak. But we all get older and experience more huh? I find I’m becoming a much calmer, yet more focused and driven person as I get older. I deliberate far less than I used to in my insecure youth, now I’m much more likely to just go for something not because I’m not thinking of the consequences but because I’m more confident of what I can achieve. Still f@*k up majorly from time to time of course but c’est la vie …
Lost in the cube (@Lostinthecube)
September 17, 2012 at 7:38 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I have discovered that the older I get the less I can do. I mean my mind still sees me as 25, my body just won’t go along with it. But I do enjoy the discounts that come my way. I’m not as worried about where my life is headed, because I am pretty much there so it does take some pressure off. But I’m looking forward to taking things slower and letting life happen instead of trying to force it to be.
Sisyphus
September 17, 2012 at 8:15 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Yeah … I’d never considered that eventuality. I guess I always just assumed that life would always be like this. I’d always want to be more than I am, always have something I’m striving to be that I’m not yet. That’s an interesting thought … not worried about where your life is headed because it’s pretty much there at this point. Thanks for sharing Lost and good luck getting to where you can be even more relaxed in your approach.
Sisyphus
September 17, 2012 at 8:19 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
If you get a chance Weeza email me with a link to the post you’re referring to. I’d be interested to see what your experiences have been. I wouldn’t have thought that I’d deliberate less or viewed my youth as insecure … although now that you phrase it that way it makes some sense. I think my youth was also a bit more self-assured, to take the alternate approach. I’d just make decisions thinking it was simple and easy … with little to no awareness that there were far reaching implications of my choices. An interesting divide.