There's a universal truth that people don't tell you, but you eventually realize for yourself. As you age, you start to become your parents. They told their stories about walking through the snow and we'd roll our eyes so many times, only people possessed by demons could rival us. But they were trying to push whatever point they were making across...usually when we were whining and complaining that we were victims of some unjust universe that chose us as the first group to torture in the history of mankind (prophets and minorities aside). I'm quite sure that when they were teenagers, they complained about the unfairness of some situation and their parents told them something about how they had to hunt for their food or flipped a coin for who'd be able to eat that day. You know, the usual.
You can probably FEEL yourself aging---not necessarily by the number of birthdays one celebrates, but by the number of things you vowed you'd never eat, do, or say... that you're now eating, doing, and saying. If you want to get a two hour explanation about how life generally works, pop The Lion King into the DVD player. Hummy yana, hummy hummy yanna..It's the circle of life....and it moves us all....
It's all very freaky. For the love of God, I want less frosting on my cake! If I told 10 year old me that in 16 years I'd take frosting OFF my cake, I wouldn't have believed older me and, again, just rolled my eyes-because at that age, rolling your eyes is one of the staples of being rebellious and yet the least rebellious way of showing your distaste for something.
But the kids these days-they don't appreciate anything! Yeah, mom and dad say that. Grandma and Grandpa say that. And now I'm saying it.
Everything is so instantaneous. They need to watch movies... in their cars...NOW. They can't wait until they get home...The Incredibles cannot wait! When driving behind some mini-van, I still find myself mesmerized, my eyes fixed on the glowing TV screen in front of me, and I think, "you stupid spoiled brats!" Probably the same thing old people said the first time they saw kids riding in a car instead of a carriage.
If their eyes aren't entertained at all times, then their ears need to be. These kids need to carry around 1,000 songs at all times. I mean, I get why they need it. Who knows if they'll need to alienate themselves from the world at a moment's notice.
Also, seriously, why does a 10 year old need a cell phone? Where is your child meandering about that they need to have you on-call to pick them up? And where are they going where there are no operable telephones or another adult's cellphone to call you from?
Truth be told, I'm jealous. I could've used portable DVD players on those car rides, alienated myself even further with IPods and I promise you I would've avoided the most unnecessary situations ever if I just had a damn cell phone in the vicinity when I was growing up. I'm sure it would've made my parents' lives a lot easier too. But I'm getting older and I have to point out the things I didn't have and the things I had to do to get by. This is the way of life (Hummy yanna, hummy hummy yanna). When these kids are older, they'll probably lament about how when they were younger, they had to drive to school instead of fly. They'll complain about how they had to watch T.V. instead of absorbing it. They'll probably tell their younger cousins about how they wore regular clothes instead of temperature controlled space suits or something.
Let the eye rolling begin! I want to tell these kids that we used to huddle around a gas heater and complain about who was taking up the most heat. You could probably tell who was abusing the heater space by the number of charred holes in their clothing. Our cat wasn't immune either. I don't know how many times I had to put out Kitty's tail. "Kitty!" I'd scream. "Your tail's on firrrrre!" (because you talk to your pet, like a member of the family, even though I'm pretty sure I've never said the words "Sho Sho! Your tail's on fire!") By the way, the cat didn't care. He just wanted warmth as much as the rest of us (which proved he was really one of us). It was damn cold, for sure.
When I was younger, we didn't always have heated water. Mom used to have to heat up the water over the stove and then pour it over our heads! Then we'd curse the country as we huddled by the gas heater, shivering from cold and anger. Heck, we didn't always have water! "No water today!?" one of us would ask in exasperation. "Damn those Israelis and their damn swimming pools" another would add, almost matter of factly.
Go ahead, ask me how much lunch money we took to school. First of all, lunch money wasn't always a given. But when we did get it, we'd be lucky if we had a shekel and a half, the equivalent of 45 cents at the time. We'd feel like we were oil tycoons if we got two and a half shekels. When we did get to the "lunch room", we had to fight for lunch. We'd be lucky if we got our lunch in time. Let me describe the jungle known as the lunch room. The lunch room looked like the commodities and futures trading pits of the NYSE. Or perhaps you've seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off? The scene where all the stock exchange dudes are screaming and gesturing their hands is pretty much what our lunch room looked like. It was survival of the fittest. Only the people who fought the hardest ate. Part of the challenge was getting the cafeteria man's attention. The other challenge was convincing them you already gave them your lunch money but they still hadn't given you your lunch. If you ordered something that they cooked there, you ran the risk of eating something that wasn't fully cooked. I sometimes gave away my pizza when the dough wasn't cooked. I tried to usually soldier through it, but sometimes I just couldn't eat uncooked dough (call me a spoiled little American). It was generally safer to eat something that was pre-packaged, like a candy bar. Of course, pre-packaged items weren't always danger proof. I once made the mistake of ordering a fruit drink that was expired and that the government had warned us not to drink. But I was a kid and I trusted that the fruit drink at school would be safe, even though mom also warned us. Ok, that's a lie. I knew the school I went to wouldn't put our safety first, but I was thirsty! And I only had a half shekel left, which was only enough to buy a Fruity! Needless to say, I had to stay home from school for a week due to food poisoning. You hear that, kids!? I was poisoned! So don't say your lunch food is like poison unless you are literally poisoned!
But that's neither here nor there. Part of accepting "the circle of life" is realizing the people before you always had it worse. No matter how cold you were, how thirsty you were or how food poisoned you were, the people before you walked barefoot in the snow, didn't try water until they were 8 and were lucky if they had cooked meat once a year. Just let them complain, so that when you're their age, you can return the favor to these spoiled little brats when they grow up and realize they've become their own parents.
Till we find our place...On the path unwinding...In the Circle....The Circle of Life!
