Reading Between the Years
This is a space for the conversations that don’t fit neatly into headlines, talking points, or inspirational slogans about aging.
We’re two friends in our sixties, living this season in real time — the physical changes, the relational shifts, the unexpected griefs, and the freedoms no one prepared us for. We’re not here to offer advice or tidy conclusions. We’re here to talk about how it actually feels.
Each episode, we read between the years — the years behind us and the ones still unfolding — and name the emotions that often go unspoken. The doubts, the humor, the tenderness, the anger, the gratitude. All of it belongs.
If you’re tired of the rhetoric and ready for the real story, you’re in the right place.
Pull up a chair. This is Reading Between the Years.
Reading Between the Years
Chapter 7: Are These Rose Colored Glasses?
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Hello, hello. It's Dana. And it's Judy. Hi, guys. Good again. Good. Nice to see everyone. And I'm sure it's wonderful to see us as always. Um, welcome back to another little conversation, a reading between the years. Um, lots happening in the world, as we all know. And of course, at the baseline of everything that I'm doing is this conversation that we're having about aging and families and relationships and all that kind of stuff that we we deal with every day with all the madness that's going on. We still have this foundation that we're all trying to figure out. So we're just going to continue our conversation. I uh spent some time this week kind of flip-flopping on what I was feeling about the younger generations and um, I always feel like that's a slur almost. Um, the younger generations and their what appears to be more prevalent introspection in the world, the sense that they a lot more people are looking inward, whether it's because they're unhappy or they self-fulfilling, but that just seems to be more of a uh a common theme with the kids that are in their 20s to their 30s. At least that's where my kids are, so that's where most of my experience is. And I used to think that was not a bad thing, but just such a different shift from what we had growing up. And I could never get an answer. I have a son who's 27, whether it's better for them to be doing that now and spending the time doing it now, or was it better for us to just get out there and get the job done and then we'll figure it out later? And neither of us could ever come up with an idea or a final answer on whether one was better than the other. But I realized this week that perhaps if our generation had spent some time looking at things while we were doing them, we wouldn't have made some of the probably pretty bad decisions in retrospect during those times of our lives. I started thinking about my first husband, I'm on my second marriage, but my first husband and the choice that I made in marrying him was definitely driven by by the madness that was going on in me. I may have known some of it, but not all of it. So through that, that people, I've heard some people say, you marry your unfinished business. Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah, I definitely did that with my first husband. May he rest in peace. I do wish him peace now that he's no longer with us. But I I purposely picked this human, whether it was, it wasn't like my husband now, where through him I'm a better person. It was like through my first husband, I was able to tread water and maybe manipulate the surroundings so that I continued to feel better about myself, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, we especially women, I don't know if it's just women, it could be men too, but I don't have experience. Um I even you know, through junior high and high school, when that peer pressure comes up, you always want to feel better about yourself. And then that's why people bully people is because it makes them feel better. Yeah. Um, and carrying that into, like you said, those blind decisions, even if it comes to what car you buy, or you know how much time you spend on your homework as opposed to messing around with your friends, it's still that self-centered decision that I mean, yeah, and you carry it forward because we do the we do those things as young adults and as teenagers, we do those things blindly. Yeah. Because that's that's how big our world is. Our world is this big. And then when you go to college, your world gets this big. And you look at yourself and you go, Oh my gosh, I can't believe, thank God I'm not in high school anymore. I'm at I'm in college. And then after college, it's like, oh God, what did I do the last you know, 10, you know, eight years or whatever. And you look back at that, it's it's the whole hindsight is 2020 thing. Oh, absolutely. And some people will grow out of it, and some people will mature out of it, some people won't. And it's a yeah, it's a whole different world. Every step of the way, it's a whole different world. And looking back, it can be embarrassing, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It can be embarrassing, it can be prideful. You can look and say, Oh man, I'm really glad I I saved that ten thousand dollars and I didn't blow down Vegas because now I need to buy a house.
SPEAKER_00Um it's just crazy when we think about an unexamined life. You know, we're trying to the metaphor I used before this, or the the phrasing that I said before, we're continually trying to move forward while our feet are still stuck in this big pot of just crazy misunderstanding of who we are, why we are, what we are, and yet we're still trying to press forward and and make decisions and make relationships and and just do all of that when really we're all just that same person in this kind of stew of who am I, what am I, why am I here? Yeah. I I maybe maybe the kids these days, because they're looking that a little earlier, will be able to make better decisions. I don't know. I don't know that I if it's true, I don't know if we'll ever find out. I certainly won't live to see that, but you know, they talk about how the generations before us messed everything up. Well, yeah, because they were dealing with so much stuff. I can't even imagine wartime, you know, half of most of the men away at war and the women in the factories, you know, you go back that far. Oh my gosh, that had to be fraught with, you know, personal in just not being satisfied with things, but then still forging ahead. That can't make for uh good decisions for an entire generation. The collective decision making was flawed at that point, I would think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's funny that you say they messed everything up because everything is so different than for them, than everything is for us. You know what I'm saying? Like if we say, Oh, our parents messed everything up, and now our kids are saying, Man, you guys are ruining the environment, you're messing everything up. But you know, 40 years ago we didn't have plastic bags. Yeah, it's a different mess. It's a completely different mess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um I mean, we could talk about that for hours, but you mentioned something about how they're becoming more aware earlier, like in what way? Do you mean social media, or do you mean like um kids are just more aware because like, yeah, how how are they more or I how are they aware earlier than we were?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I just think, and maybe that's the wrong way to look at it, but all the self-care stuff, all the the new awarenesses of the different books and everything that you can read for self-actualization and all that kind of stuff, the steps that they take to take care of themselves. I mean, even the term self-care, right? What? Yeah, what do you mean self-care? Yeah, even that whole wave of self-care and the the different things on YouTube, all the different videos and the meditations and all that kind of stuff that you can listen to, the the uh Hertz musics and and that to kind of get your vibration. It's a combination, I think, of the new, the new new age, because you know, the old new age were the hippies and they were the crazy ones, and now the new new age is all, you know, the new versions of the tarot, the new versions of the the meditations with the Hertz music and the different vibrations behind you, all of that new stuff just makes me, and maybe, maybe I'm wrong in this, but I just see such a prevalence of you know, self-care things that people are doing. So maybe they're not more aware, maybe they just realize that they're worthy of time and space and making those decisions. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I it's funny you mentioned the self-care thing too, because I think that all came about, and this is just my opinion, I think that all came about because our generation and the generation before us, like our parents, so we're talking about um post-war and then what you would consider us boomers or Jen Jones. Um we worked ourselves to death, and we still do. And so everything that is related to self-care now, do we actually do it because we're the ones that need it? Or is it the generations that follow us who do self-care, but they haven't really worked themselves to death?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Or maybe they still are because of us, and they're recognizing it. But it seems to me a lot of people in our generation, people that are my age, still don't do it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because it's think it's it's too much work. But I also think that our end goal is different. We derive our happiness differently because I think like today worked hard. I mean, had some big time discussions, big meetings, trying to figure out a whole bunch of different stuff, got all the irons in the fire, like we all do, typical generation us, right? Yeah, but I come home feeling happy because of that hard work. Because it was successful, because it but but I I'm proud of the effort that I put forth. It isn't like a feeling, it's a it's a product. It's a product of my day. It isn't just I'm not, you know, if you sit there and and expect a feeling just to come over you, you're gonna be nothing but distraught about things because I don't feel happy right now. It's like my 10-year-old granddaughter. It's like, yeah, some days you're bored. Yep, gonna be you're gonna be okay. Someday you just feel a little bit down. Yep, we're in March in Michigan. Yep, now thank God. But yep, there are some days.
SPEAKER_01Not here.
SPEAKER_00But I think maybe maybe I'm looking at this completely wrong, is that maybe they're expecting happiness to come from just something that just comes over you as opposed to it's like it's like me not believing and found money. That's why I don't go to the casino and spend and just expect money to fall into my lap. Right. Because it doesn't have value to me, it doesn't have validity in my world. My my money, I need to work for it because that's a dual satisfaction. I get the monetary satisfaction and I get the no the knowing that I worked hard for it. Right.
SPEAKER_02And that's our generation. And I I believe the two, three, four generations before us as well. I mean, there's always those people that expect someone else to pay for everything. Yeah. But the majority of us, yes, we get not only financial gain or to be able to pay our bills through our work, but also self-satisfaction.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you were saying, like a lot of people would expect just this um feeling of happiness come over them. It that's that's that's no different than the false feeling of I can only feel love and not see it or experience it. Like you're you're not necessarily going to be in love. What I do that too much, sorry. You're not gonna be in love. I mean, we being in love or feeling love isn't just this thing that washes over you and always stays there. And it doesn't work that way. No, um, if that's if that's how you look at love, that's from a 16-year-old's you know, vantage point. Yeah. So yeah, it's the road rose-colored glasses, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, I think I told you before that my mom never expected to be happy in her life.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I was shocked that you said that.
SPEAKER_00But look at that. I mean, so she would have been 85. No, 80, no, 90, 90 this year. She's been gone for 30 years. So that makes sense, right? Post-World War II, post-depression, baby. I mean, I still take my lunch in bagel bags. I still use sour cream containers because I still have rubber bands around the doorknobs of my house, because that was at my grandmother's house because you saved all that shit, right? You use rubber bands. Yeah, yeah, rubber bands. You saved it all because that's where granny, my grandmother, that's heck yeah, rubber bands, those are valuable.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. But glass jars.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and happiness isn't something that I have high on my list of value for, like I said, if I had a successful day, happiness is just not a word that I come up with. So maybe, maybe I have this all wrong. But I do is that content.
SPEAKER_02You're looking at content instead of happiness or the same thing.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, but it's just, you know, so is this self-care is that what does that mean? I guess that kind of I always thought it was trying to to help you touch base and get closer to happiness. Maybe it's not, that's not what it's about. Maybe I'm all screwed up.
SPEAKER_02Oh no. No, I I agree. That that's I think it's partially about that. Yeah. It's all I think it's also um, as you and I would put it, a rest and digest thing and not a fight or flight. Yeah. You know, because you know, self-care is no, you don't have to volunteer for one more thing. You can you can sit back and you can not feel guilty about doing a hobby or sleeping in or taking a nap in the afternoon, or just you know, letting that one task go for another day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, I think that's part of self-care is recognizing the fact that you need rest and recuperation, either physically and mentally.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's something that our generation, like we already discussed, we're just workaholics.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we don't do that very well.
SPEAKER_02That's where our satisfaction comes from.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But then again, you know, there are I think that's a quality of people who are ADHD. And most healthcare providers, it whether it's EMS, fire, or in hospital nurses like you, um, are ADHD or ADD. And when I say ADHD, we're not talking about hyperactive like physically, we're talking about our brain. You know, I can walk around the house and want to go downstairs for one thing, for a roll of paper towel to go grab that, bring it up to my kitchen, and end up doing two loads of laundry and cleaning a table off in the basement, and then coming back upstairs and go, Oh, yeah, I just spent an hour and a half downstairs. So that stuff could have waited until the weekend or something like that. Um, but that's the that's the H part of ADD that I deal with. I have to tell myself it's okay that I don't, I can't make myself feel guilty about not going or about not stopping to do one more thing when I'm not even on this particular task and it's not even related. That to me is part of my self-care because it's it's literally just giving myself a break. Yeah. Not saying I have to do everything um all at once. And acting like that just makes your brain spin.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But that's huge because you figure, at least I look at things like that, not allowing myself to not do something, you know, I always should be doing something or something like that. That definitely, even though it's not directly, taps into some of my dysfunction from past, from my past. So maybe it isn't examining the reason that you do things, but just stopping the behavior. And that has to help as well. I mean, I mean, you really do need to eventually get down to why you're doing what you're doing. But I I have to believe that helps a little bit, maybe. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02It does. And then, like from the beginning of the conversation about why we focused on certain things when we were teenagers or young adults, it all falls into, it just follows us as we go through, and then we define it differently.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And you know how what they say, you know, it's it's too bad. What's the what's the saying about it's too bad you have to be so old to be wise or something? I don't know what it is. It's true. They'll put it in the comments, but um it's it's it's that concept, you know. It's like why didn't I recognize this 20 years ago, or why didn't I do this when I was 20? Or why didn't I, why did I think that when I was 16? Boy, I was so dumb and this stuff like that. Um yeah, it's the whole it's like it's like flavoring through your life and it just changes as you go. Yep. You know, and it yeah, it just yep, that's it.
SPEAKER_00But I mean, the the quality of the differences between my two marriages are directly related to the person I am. It's amazing. So my first marriage, I was getting older, I was 32, whoo, old. Um, wasn't didn't have anybody, you know, hadn't really, I was working in food service. I was out in Seattle and met this guy, and he was in the same company, and I found that his work ethic was very good, which of course is a big thing for me. Go figure. And yeah, it was just yeah, it's like, oh gee, I value your integrity, whatever. Come to find out, you know, he wasn't anything that I thought he was. I just got hoodwinked. And a lot of it was, you know, I I want to get married, I want to have kids. So we got married. And and I was telling Judy earlier, I I have always had, I don't want to say inf inferiority complex, but both my brothers are brilliant. My brothers are brilliant human beings. Um, and so I married someone that was not as book smart as me, I guess. I had gone to college and all this, he hadn't. So I think that I did that because it all automatically I already had that level, that hierarchy above him, whether it was true or not. But I think that that was true. So I knew that I would always in my daily life have this awareness that I was above somebody because my whole life I felt like I was below everybody. Hierarchy. I mean, horrible. What a horrible way to go into a relationship. I mean, I'm grateful I have two kids and it lasted seven years, but wow, that's really think of all those decisions that are being made out there every day when people think that they're making them from free will and they're truly still trying to heal the wounds or or try to get the attention of whoever they didn't get attention from their whole lives.
SPEAKER_02The wounds from years ago, and you know, like the slow bleeds that we're not aware of. Yeah. Like you were saying. Uh, but I think, you know, my siblings in my childhood was very similar to that because I I don't know if it was the whole college thing as well or not. Um, my siblings are probably gonna listen to this sooner or later, but my um my dad went to college, you know, um, left early. My mom went to college, left early. So they didn't have they both had very specific skills, and they're both very intelligent people. My dad's a retired fire chief. Um, and my mom had was very intelligent. In fact, she worked in EM, not EMS, but she was a dispatcher and she worked at um Greenville Village, which is now the Henry Henry Ford, Henry Ford in Dearborn. And um she contributed a lot to society. Um, but I think with us five kids, it was oh yeah, we have to go to college because our parents didn't get to go to college or didn't get to finish college for one reason or another. Um and it was always a struggle, and out of the five of us, um we all have different accomplishment certifications or degrees. Um, but not necessarily college.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I have a sister who has a master's degree. She's probably she's probably got the most education of all of us. Um, but I think we used to see each other as competition. Now it's more like survival.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um but yeah, just growing up, and we and we should probably talk about that sometime, was growing up with with different siblings, like you were talking about your brother's brilliant, and you felt the pressure to have to, you know, overcome that you know, that fact.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that deficit was there. But now it that's the other thing too. Now that we don't have parents and it's just us. And year and years ago, because I was we didn't know we don't know each other, we don't we weren't around each other very much. So I couldn't really have any proof to the contrary. So I just lived with that. Oh, yeah, they're they're brilliant human beings, they're the best human beings in the world. So that's where they were. I didn't have, like I said, proof either way that that was true or not. So that's just where they stayed. Right. And then we've had life experiences. We, you know, my middle brother was with me when my dad died, when our dad died, which I was very proud of, but it wasn't his jam. So it was, you know, it we all play different roles in these different situations in our lives. So now I feel like we're on that even or it, or I see that it doesn't matter. Who cares? Yeah, they each have their strengths, but now I think I'm able to see my strengths, and I think they have some awareness of some strengths that I have that maybe they don't, which was the other big thing of me being less than was that they just didn't care, you know what I mean? Yeah, they just didn't care about me, and that was fine. You know, it wasn't too no, but it didn't matter either. It's like we were just non non-entities in each other's lives. But I just knew, you know, when you're ever, whenever you're the youngest, it's gonna be a thing, right? I think it's always gonna be a thing with the older siblings.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00But it's just really nice now, and now that we're kind of forced to be intentional with our relationship because we don't have the parents that bring us together once a year, we have to, we have to make the effort to stay in touch with each other. And even if it and and be grateful for any of it. That's the other thing, is to not put too much pressure on it. Yeah, because you put so much pressure on it, um, then it just gets more awkward and becomes an obligation. And we all I think any obligation with family is tainted already. You're never gonna get anything out of it that's gonna be valuable.
SPEAKER_02It's not enjoyable, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's not fun at all.
SPEAKER_02It all depends on how it's couched, too. But um, yeah, our my sister-in-law, my um my husband's brother's wife, so his sister-in-law, really. I mean, we've always been very close with them. Um, Kurt and Mitch were the closest. And she said she, you know, she one of her biggest concerns when um when their both their folks died was that she didn't want to lose touch of her family because that was we were her family. She has a sister and um her dad is still around, but she doesn't get to see them as often either. But she just didn't want to lose touch with us, yeah. Um, and so we have been intentional when it comes to getting hold of her and um, you know, trying to get together and things like that. Um, but kind of doesn't work. It's yeah, it doesn't happen. I mean, we're it's it's minimal.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I think family relationships, yeah, being able to take it beyond the convenience that it has when we're younger is is very difficult. Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_02We're almost out of time, so we've got to wrap it up and say goodbye.
SPEAKER_00We kind of rambled all over today, but we did, but that's that's okay.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I learned a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I hope my family, but yeah, yeah. Um the the rose-colored glasses while we were growing up, we could still talk about this next week.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I always feel better after this, and I hope everybody else does enjoy it as well. Please don't hesitate to to send us comments if you watch this video and it means something to you or doesn't or have suggestions. We're learning as we go. So we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_02All right, take care, you guys. Bye. Bye.