Generations
Written Dec 4, 2022, tagged under post
It has really struck me today, looking at my children and the stages they have reached in their lives, that some sort of generational milestone has been passed. Specifically, I can see that my children are now hitting the exact point that I was at when I launched into what I would now refer to as my adult life.
For instance, my middle child came back home for Christmas today after her first term at university. She came back with her girlfriend who, as extreme coincidence would have it, is studying at the same college where my wife and I first met. We periodically receive photos of them having dinner in the college hall, sitting in pretty well exactly the seats my wife and I were in when we first spoke. There's a generational waypoint right here: my wife and I meeting in a room, and then my daughter and her partner sat in the same room exactly one generation later.
I have tended to think of generations as simply being consecutive sets of people whose age gap in years is around the average age of having children. If people have children at around age thirty, for instance, then a twenty year old and a fifty year old are a generation apart. But that feels rather vague and indefinite to me, somehow, while this passing of a particular point in life feels like a more tangible measure of a generation.
Sad to say, the terrible news we received yesterday also reminded me of fellow students from university who tragically didn't survive to made it to graduation. Three students immediately leap to mind whose lives were cut short through some kind of misadventure as a student, caused by alcohol, mental health or just plain bad luck. This generational waypoint is much sadder - nobody should have to experience the grief of losing someone at that age - but again shows the wheel has slowly, steadily made one full turn.
It feels important to not let all this time pass unmarked.