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 8: Personality Matters
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(Is it personal, or is it not...?)
Hi guys, it's Judy. Hi, it's Dana. We're back again. Can't get rid of us if you try. Um just coming back together again for another conversation. Um, we somehow managed to keep coming up with things to talk about. So unfortunately, today you have to endure a little bit of reality in my life because we've talked, in fact, I think in very first conversation, we talked about how important it is to actually speak to the um feelings and everything else behind the rhetoric that you hear out there. You hear the people giving you your snappy sound bites about how you're supposed to handle things. And um it's all well and good, I guess, but it's very important to have a personal knowledge or a personal understanding of what it feels like to be in that situation. And I actually had one of those this week, so I thought I'd share it a little bit if that's okay, if you'll indulge me. Um I have to hear, yeah, let me go. I had um, I have two adult children, two boys, and I had an example of, well, let's start off first. First, my my youngest son texted me. He's we text throughout the week, and I'm very grateful for that. But he asked me very point blank, do you ever feel what was it? Do you always feel like you're a grown-up in a child's, no, a child in a grown up's body? Do you ever feel like you're truly grown up, or do you always feel like you're in this, you're still a little kid inside of this grown-up body trying to do grown-up things? And he's very, he's very thoughtful. He's very wants to feel better, wants to understand. He's a very thoughtful soul. And I just thought that was very interesting because I think we all feel that way, right? We all feel that way so much, and and there's just a lack of understanding that, yeah, yeah, everybody feels that way at times. And we had a great conversation. We go out go out to eat once a month and had a conversation about that, and said, I guess the bottom line for me was that nobody knows really what they're doing. Nobody knows really what they're doing. And unfortunately, some of the most important things that we go through as adults is if we have children, is helping to make decisions on those children's lives, right? A crisis comes up or a concern comes up, or the ever, you know, where do babies come from? You know, these life-altering questions. Well, I guess the question isn't life-altering, but the potential response can be. And we're all just winging it. We're all just winging it. I mean, I don't, I don't think that he was going that deep with it. I think he just wanted to know what to do with some house stuff that he had going on. And he was a little upset that he didn't know what to do. But it was just, it was such a great conversation.
SPEAKER_02I'm really glad you had a good conversation about it, though. But you bring up one thing, and you you mentioned this with me before. You know, nothing, nothing's predictable because every single situation and every person is different. And so for someone to say, yeah, your teenager is going to do this when they become 15, doesn't necessarily not necessarily true. What is your son's situation with his frustration with the house? It's going to be different than it is your other son when that may or may not come along. And winging it, you know, saying we're winging it, everybody uses that term, but we're still doing the best with the information we have at the time. It doesn't mean like, oh, it's it's you know, seeing saying or using um winging it isn't the same as willy-nilly. Yeah. Because that just kind of gives you the impression that yeah, I don't care. You just do what you want, you know, whatever, pick pick the best one or whatever makes you feel good. No, we're gonna, you're still gonna sit back and try and assess the situation and say something very different for one kid that you would for a different kid. Um, even though it might be a similar situation because you know your children pretty well. Hopefully, you know yourself pretty well, but that kind of brings it back around to you is that am I that kid that's in an adult, you know, body? Do I want to be a kid in an adult body every once in a while? Yeah, I absolutely do, but I'm you're not gonna find me jumping on a trampoline anymore. You know, mentally, yes, I'm gonna go jump on the trampoline, but physically, no, I'm not gonna do that. Am I sad about that? Am I sad about some things and excited about other things? Yeah, but yeah, the biggest thing is it's just very different, just yeah, so different for all of us for every situation, and it's unpredictable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the one time I always feel jealous of children, and it is a jealousy, is when they get to fall down and skin their knee and cry and act like it's the end of the world, and oh my gosh, or be grumpy, you know, to do the old be grumpy. Oh my gosh, you're allowed to. Think how much better the world would be if we could let that energy out. You know, we used to laugh. My my ex-sister-in-law used to always laugh about Alyssa Milano, had that teen steam thing when she was like coming up. It's like, you gotta you gotta vent the teen steam or whatever it was. It's like, yeah, you gotta you gotta vent the energies here. And it's like we can't do that. Now we just internalize and find other ways to vent it. But I just I thought I remember he my son also being very shocked when he found out that none of us really want to get up in the morning and go to work and do what we have to do. Yeah, that that is an intentional action that we have to do and we can choose whether we want to be okay with it or not okay with it. Um, but he was floored, I remember, because he's like, I don't want to go to school. And it's like, well, we don't want to go to work either, so let's go, let's buck up, you know.
SPEAKER_02So he didn't realize that he just did he think that he was, you know, a bad person or like just abnormal because he didn't want to go to school or work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that because he and I are very similar in some ways, and that we usually get up in a pretty good mood. Mason always floored me that he as a baby would be laying in his bed wait or crib waiting for me to come get him singing or or just playing, and was very a happy person. So I think in general, for him to have that negative kind of, oh, here comes another day, you know, was I think shocking. But then I think in some ways it's reassuring. I think we all feel that way sometimes. It's there are I remember a few times in my life where I was excited. I wanted to get the night over with. I wanted to go to sleep so I could get up and do the next day because I was so excited on what was going. And I kind of feel that way these days, but it's uh, I think the expectation, and I think that's always going to be the thing that trips us up, right? Is we have these expectations of what something's gonna be like, and and you hold so tight to those, waiting for those things to happen, and they just don't happen. I mean, they're not based in reality. Yeah, you're talking about kids being different. I I we were talking a little earlier about those what to expect when you're expecting book. And they're the one that that book was a groundbreaker. I understand that because the other ones before those were so glossy and all beautiful, and you were having babies like you do on TV, where there's you know, you have your full face of makeup on and you look beautiful for pictures with your child who's not crying or having any problems, and they latch babies. Yeah, so that was groundbreaking, but still, I uh all the girls that are having babies in the in the ER, the nurses that I work with, it's everyone is so completely different. They try to give each other advice, and I think once you're a parent of more than one child, you understand how different it can be. And so then you give realistic advice because you know, my children were vastly different from from the whole time I was pregnant all the way through. But I just think it's interesting. I think it's interesting how we we gauge things and how we kind of grade things based on the expectations of what we thought it would be. And that's that's unfortunate if you can't if you can't go with the flow.
SPEAKER_02And grades, like you said, grades are if you put it that way, grades are very cut and dry. They're very black and white, and we can't fit everybody into that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like today, you know, you have more homeschool kids because they can't do traditional school, which is acceptable now. Thank God. It's just it's the way it is because we're recognizing that everybody's brain works differently.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But you kind of reminded me of um something my mom said, you know, when she when somebody said to her, you know, when are you gonna retire? Or I mean, she was her early 60s, when are you gonna retire? You should retire. And she said, I don't want to wake up with nothing to do, you know, because you're saying, I'm excited to go to sleep because I know it's tomorrow, or it's my birthday, I'm 12, I'm gonna be 13 tomorrow. I can't wait to go to sleep. You know, my mom was always looking for more to do, and I don't know if it's just because she didn't want to retire or she just wanted, you know, new things to do. But I thought, yeah, does is that what retirement means? That you wake up with nothing to do? I mean, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00For everybody. Once again, the expectations, right? The expectations of what it used to mean, which was you know, Bermuda shorts sitting in a lawn chair in the front yard. You know, you know what I mean? The the old brick collapsible lawn chairs. Like my my husband's parents used to sit in their garage and just watch traffic go by. They they open the garage door and just sit there and do nothing. That's definitely not what's going on now. Oh no, no, we have so much more power to do that.
SPEAKER_02But there's retirement means something completely different. And I might even, for some people, just go from one job to the next. Yeah, I'm gonna retire from my long-term job and I'm gonna go work at Home Depot, or I'm gonna go, you know, do something different because we all get so bored. Yeah, you know, but Bermuda shorts, that's great. Oh, moving on.
SPEAKER_00Well, you can see the person in the in the tank top, the guy with the white tank top with the Bermuda shorts with the beer in his hand. Yep, I can see that person very vividly in their driveway or their garage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, being like Clint Eastwood in uh um in that movie. Oh, what is it? El Torino, where he's like Oh, yeah, we've the neighbor.
SPEAKER_00I may still do that, but whatever. Now that I think about it, thinking about Mason, it's like I'm hoping that, you know, once again, looking back on how you raise your kids, and I and what was nice about him, and what I think really struck me in this conversation is that he asked the question, right? He didn't, he didn't understand something or he wanted to know something. I'm using all these terms that I despise, but he was curious about perhaps you know, my my interpretation or what I lived through or my life experience, and it it helped bridge that gap between our generation. We don't, he and I don't have a lot of gaps. We've always been pretty in sync with each other. I don't know why we always used to say that my oldest was my husband's and Mason was mine. Just because we were just in sync. And uh, but I think he was he was interested in knowing that the things that we don't that we think are only ours are universal. So much of what we think is only ours is universal in this. Yeah, so it's a good thought. Yeah, and I thought that that I think that I'm hoping that it gave him hope and and it makes me think that I need to watch what I'm doing, or the because you still are setting examples for your kids, no matter how old anybody is in the scenario. Because I'm thinking I'm busier now than I was. Well, I've always been a busy person, but I don't want to make him think that if he's not as productive or anything, that that's a failure on somebody's part, and that there is still individuality. But to but to compare this to the other situation I had with my other son, um, so we are not a faith-based family. We're not we're faithful, but we're not associated with a specific religion or anything like that. So Easter really has never the holidays in general don't mean anything to this family simply because we work in EMS and fire service, yeah, majority of the time. So holidays aren't a thing. You know, you work your weekend in the ED, whether it's a holiday or not. Right. Yeah, and if you're lucky and can arrange it, you'll work a holiday so you can get double time or time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, time a half.
SPEAKER_00That's the way you do it, right? Yeah, it's the way it works. And uh so unfortunately, my kids didn't have a lot of traditions when it comes around holidays. In fact, for Christmases, uh, that was more of a when my mom died, I didn't want to do the Christmases anymore, which again, I that's one of the things that I I don't regret, but I wish I could have made different choices for my kids because now they don't they don't have that history of I love Christmas because I come home and the tree is decorated and all that kind of warm fuzzies. So that that's on me though, I'll own that. But Easter is something that really hasn't hasn't been a thing. My dad's wife would do Easter egg hunts for the boys when they were little, so that was great. She took care of that. Um, but we don't decorate, we don't didn't do any of that stuff. Right. So it was Easter, what, a week, week or so ago last weekend was Easter. Yeah. So I was we were we were on our daily walk that we take and talking about doing things with his family for Easter. They were gonna go over to my uh whatever ex-husband's girlfriend's family's house because they wanted to do something for his daughters, which is great. He has a 10-year-old daughter and a one-year-old daughter who just turned one yesterday. Woo-hoo! Um, but I said, Oh, that that's good. And he goes, Well, I just tell people that my parents didn't have any friends, so they didn't do any of that stuff, and now I have to do it for my families. And I was like, What? I actually kind of stopped dead in my tracks when we were walking around this road out here, and I I was like, didn't have any friends, didn't have any friends, and I think he he by saying that, and he is someone that says things for a fact, right? Um that we didn't have any place to go for Easter, or that we didn't make the effort because you know, or something, we weren't something enough to provide this activity for our kids to create traditions, yeah. And and I'm like, I was so upset, so upset, because in my mind, all I'm thinking about is all and all I ever go to, except for Christmas, is all the things I did for my kids, right? Single parent for those years. I made a business so that they didn't have to go to daycare ever. Um, and they were with babysitters only when absolutely necessary. And I'm like, really? This you're gonna what? You're gonna say this about Easter? And you're gonna knock me down about Easter? I'm sure I internalized it way too much, but it was so different than than the previous conversation with my other son where he asked me about stuff where I could share a little bit more about what what I was going through or what what it was like for me, so that we can find that universality as opposed to yeah, as opposed to this kind of throw a grenade and run. Yeah, it was very it took me a minute. Taken aback. Yeah. Because like I said, but I but that's my my blinders too, is of course you want to frame yourself and your memories of yourself as a parent in the positive light. And I know there were times, like I was a yeller at times. You know, I tell you something twice and you don't do it, guess what? I'm yelling. I'm sorry, I gotta get your attention. You're too crazy. Yep. I had to I had to raise my voice. You know, it's like it it it wasn't just because of what he it just it I was shocked what he said, but then I it ricochets so quickly back where you start examining your parenting. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh yeah. Not that I can do anything about it. So that's a deck.
SPEAKER_02Creating all that doubt and and that thought of wait, what did I do now that I wasn't aware of? That's that hurts. Um and and of course it makes you look back with 2020 vision, like, wait a second, you know, if I if I didn't do this right or didn't do that right, then you're just beating yourself up, and then you start playing tapes in your head and you can't sleep, and it's so different than what your other son said. You know, the relationship is is very different. But you know, while you were talking about that, it made me think when there's so much that we're still responsible for because we're like in the middle, sometimes taking care of parents and then still taking terror care of kids, taking care of grandkids. It's almost like who's taking care of us sometimes except except ourselves. Um, and do people do people value us? Do people see us? But also when I'm when am I or when am I ever going to just only be accountable for myself? I mean, that sounds like I'm gonna get rid of all of my you know relationships and just be alone. That's not exactly what I'm saying, but there's just so much pressure on it, not only from the different generations, but on yourself. Yeah, and hearing that from him just enhances it, yeah, and kind of makes it worse. Like, okay, this is one more thing I have to put on my list. Think about to feel bad about, wonder if I did the right thing or didn't do the right thing. And how long ago was this? And when could I have changed that? And why am I even thinking about it now? And then I should care, but who cares? I keep thinking about it, but I should care. But wait, I don't care. I can't care. What am I doing? You know, and that's where the tapes come in. And you you go to bed, you forget about it for the afternoon, and then you go to bed at 10 o'clock at night and think, wait a second, now I'm gonna play tapes and I can't sleep. Yeah, just so all-encompassing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the other thing. The other thing that I think was it was actually seemed to be a new concept to to to Mason, my youngest son, is the the idea of assuming uh positive intent. Right? Assume unless you have evidence to the contrary. And we've always we've said in several of our talks that we know there's bad people out there, we know there are people that maliciously take advantage and do bad things. Bad things. That's not who we're talking about, but because we really are winging it, right? I I was winging it for sure. My mom died a month and a half before Max was born, and I had no freaking clue. Um, I remember calling calling a friend one time and saying, How do you help a child throw up? Because it's not well, we had a kid in our neighborhood growing up. Once again, we all come to into situations with our own history and our own memories, who had a brain injury because he inhaled his own vomit when he puked when he was a kid. So I was very nervous. That could have, I believe it was true. God only knows if it was true, but I'm pretty sure it was. So it's like, how do I help? I I don't remember who I called. I think I called my mother-in-law and said, How do I help? You know, Max is what how do I help him puke? I don't want him to go and suck it all back in. Yeah, it's like, oh my god. But if we can assume good intent, we can assume that each and every one of us has a certain amount of common sense. I know it's a little risky these days to make that assumption, but has the the best of all people involved in the forefront of their mind, that we really only want to help, we don't really we don't want to harm. Can't that just be good enough? Can't that just be, you know, I don't know why people still have to carry that stuff like a weapon against people? And I and like I said, I don't think that that was his intent. I think he just says things to get shocks out of it, but man, he's got to check that stuff.
SPEAKER_02But you brought up a good point, is is intent. It's um it's it's the conversation that we have to have, and some people are willing to have the conversation and some people aren't. They'll put restrictions on you and rules and trying to control a situation because they won't communicate with you. So it's forced control. Um and you gotta have that conversation, whether you think it's adequate or it's the time for it or not, yeah, you have to start somewhere. You can't just put um rules and regulations on someone else and say, I'm not, you know, this isn't gonna happen unless you do this. Yeah, well, if I don't understand exactly what your requirements are, why can't we talk about it? Yeah, and there's so many out there that's like, nope, we're not gonna talk about it until this happens or this happens, or or you're not gonna see your grandkids until this happens. But why? We need to talk about why, we need to talk about who, we need to talk about your impression or intent, or both parties, and like Mason asked you questions, he wants a dialogue, yeah, and it opens things up, but Max was the other way around, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But then again, I mean, I didn't think about the control thing because the people that do make it so know it'll be this way or it won't happen at all. All and this and this and this and this and this, but can you exert control over a situation where you felt completely out of control if it was 25 years ago? 35 years ago? What's I mean, how does that offer anybody any healing or any progress if if it's that long ago?
SPEAKER_02If it's that long ago, yeah. Yeah. Or even four or five years ago.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and and minor to begin with, you know, and and I and I totally understand that intent and impression and the hurt, even for minor things, or like an insult or something like that, it that happened years ago, um that they're thinking about that or say, or you know, adding that up, putting it on the list.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That this is just proof that, you know, one thing or another happened and I can't deal with this, or I have to put up boundaries. But where do you draw the line with that? Where do you draw the line where it needs discussion because everybody needs to be on the same page, which there's absolutely nothing wrong with that? If you start with discussion and it falls apart, okay, well, then maybe everybody does need to go into their own corner and handle themselves or do counseling or something like that. But then again, you can't sit on the sidelines and try and coach someone without understanding what their previous training was. If you're coaching soccer, yeah, you can't treat a fifth grader the same as a second grader because they have different experiences.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They have completely different experiences at different ages. And so to lump everybody into your demands, that's that's just deflection. That's that's that's not, it's not like you said, it's not healing, it's not moving forward. It's just it's just demanding things because it's forced control.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And um it's it's forced manipulation, really, is what I was gonna say.
SPEAKER_00The word control suddenly doesn't seem correct because ultimately you're abdicating your control even more by making it all about what somebody else does. It only happens if you do this, then you're putting more control on the person that you're trying to control or manipulating them. And when does it, in your mind, does it come become the person's own responsibility to heal from this stuff?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and does it does it come become that person's responsibility, you said?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, when does the person that's asking for all is setting all the boundaries because of something that happened in the past? Like I still bark at my oldest brother who says that he was forced to go to medical school by by my mother and his grandmother because they had money available for him to go to medical school and he just had to be a doctor. Well, crying a frickin' river, they're also the ones that gave you a brain big enough to be able to do this, uh, an eyetic memory so that you could do it and just who you are. But it's it gets to the point once you're past that and you're 20 years into your career that you have to just say, yeah, maybe, but what does it matter? I'm a grown-up. I'm a grown-up, I'm a grown-ass man.
SPEAKER_02I'm a grown-ass adult. And I'm gonna and I'm gonna pick and choose what's gonna help my future, not what's gonna change the past. Ooh, that's good. So that's very good. Just doesn't it doesn't work the same for everybody. But like you said, it's about conversation, like you, Mason. Um, it's eye-opening, and if you can't have that by sitting on the sidelines demanding things, yeah. But we're almost out of time. Oh, but we could continue this conversation about all that stuff. But it was great to have you guys here. It was great to see Dana.
SPEAKER_01Yay, my friend Judy. And we will see you all you guys soon. Bye. Bye, Dana,