I have a secret. I adore twenty-somethings. I love that they don’t wear watches (why would you, the phone tells the time), make only soft plans (again because the phone is used as homing device for both time and space), and are following their hearts because they literally can’t do anything else. They have the world at their fingertips, are amazingly aware of the plights of others and don’t know that having a job was their parents secret reason for making sure they went to college. I love that they express themselves honestly, even if it makes their elders wince in bewilderment (“What? Did you say you met him when you sold him weed??”). I love that they seem incapable of lying, even if you kind of wish they would (“Is there really no food in the house??!”) and actually seem to want to spend time with me even though, in their eyes, I must be “old”.
Twenty-something gorgeous!
I have had the greatest privilege of getting to hang out with, chat to, exchange email with and generally applaud twenty-somethings because both of my daughters are in this group and also have the most delightful friends also the same age. I want you all to know I salute you. I salute the fact that you are suave enough to put in for a job in another city (or country) that you found online but that you still call home to say “I love you”. It is amazing to know that you are negotiating a world and working on your skills sets for careers that are only in the process of being imagined. You have gone through uncertainty, disappointment and loss at a much earlier age and have already made it to the other side with your strength-of-self still firmly in tact. I love that you can feel and admit fear and that you are out there anyway, doing things we (as in your parents, friends of parents and anyone who still can’t take a selfie worth publishing) are still trying to figure out.
Twenty-something honesty…
Dearest Twenty-somethings, here is what I would love for you to know. Your mama and daddy did what you are doing (go to school, look for work, find someone to love) all without the aid of the internet (I know, it is scary to think about). We did what we were taught or modeled and only followed our hearts when all else failed (thank God you are learning to do this earlier). We can read paper maps, learned to knit by asking a friend or a Grandmother since there was no YouTube to remind us how at midnight on a Saturday night and had to call home in the middle of the night to ask our parents what to do with a crying baby (that would be you;) again, because this was before the advent of the access of all information at our fingertips.
Here’s looking at you, Success!
What I love about the difference in generations is that it gives us plenty of things to talk about whether seated next to one another on a plane, or at a networking event at lunch. Let us enjoy our differences in backgrounds and definitions of success even as we enjoy the wonder of the love that we can feel for one another. The next time a twenty-something looks for praise for even the smallest of task, give it to them, they have been surfing the net since they were old enough to know better, have more information thrown at them than we can ever know and are just looking for confirmation that they, too, are worthy of love. Just like us. We are all worthy of love and noticing of a life well lived, however long it is.
