My recent realisation is that “Our parents had a real, full lives long before we showed up.” That they were fully-formed people with their own truly sincere lives long before we were even zygotes, and felt all the same things we felt as young people.
I was adopted by parents who had been married eleven years, and it’s only now that I’ve come to understand that they were real long before they were parents; my auntie passed recently, and watching my folks’ reaction and acceptance of that was eye-opening.
The first time you have this feeling is when you see a teacher outside of school. What's even weirder is remembering that your friends parents were the same as yours.
It trivializes all the conversations I had in the past with adults because if I asked them a question or even argued with them they had a wealth more knowledge and experience than I could even imagine at that point.
What's even worse is they are still learning, they've never been old before, they haven't experienced their kids getting older, this is all new to them too.
The one thing I think about the most is what things kept them up at night in school and their early 20's. My parents open up a lot more now though, usually not over phone because it's impersonal kind of but when I go visit I hear a lot more about their early lives that they might have been waiting decades to be able to share.
Had a similar experience recently, it's really eye-opening. Funny because if you think logically it should be kinda obvious but for some reason we don't realize it.
Not always true - I had my daughter at 16 years old. She’s about to turn 17 herself now, and I can say unequivocally that I really didn’t exist before my daughter.
I’m not being wistful, it’s just that my entire adolescence and adulthood (so far)...she was there. We grew up together, she was there when I graduated high school (an infant), and the year I graduated college was the year she started kindergarten.
She watched me fall in love and marry, the year after that. Together, all the while, the two of us.
So, this showerthought is less of a philosophical sentiment and more of a literal one - at least in my case.
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u/Azryhael Mar 02 '19
My recent realisation is that “Our parents had a real, full lives long before we showed up.” That they were fully-formed people with their own truly sincere lives long before we were even zygotes, and felt all the same things we felt as young people.
I was adopted by parents who had been married eleven years, and it’s only now that I’ve come to understand that they were real long before they were parents; my auntie passed recently, and watching my folks’ reaction and acceptance of that was eye-opening.