According to me it is somewhat of a fable that Kids will keep you young.
It is an expression often used in the Netherlands, and probably in many other countries but there are too many moments that I am really wondering which idiot thought this up….
I mean having twinboys, their wives and my boyfriend all in the same age bracket, I should be feeling like 26 too, so how come I feel like 86 every so often? And no I cannot blame everything unto the Corona, however easy that might be..
I think the expression should be adapted to if you dare to step away from your parental position and you dare to completely chose for yourself, not caring one bit about anything else and then find yourself a young boyfriend and immerse yourself in his world, but really??, let’s get a reality check shall we.
First of all, and this I learned ten years ago from my lovely mum in law, you are and will always stay your childs mum, whatever their age and in all her wisdom she said: You will realise that you are old, when your child reaches the age of 50….. then all of a sudden you are really old!
Ahhh so true, I already got an inkling when my youngest (by a quarter of a minute) had my first grandchild, I mean my baby had a baby and I had no idea how to deal with it.
I adore this gorgeous creature when I see him and I should really see him a lot more but I am not only a useless girlfriend, I am also somewhat of an inconsistent nana.
Adding the fact that other than loads of my girfriends, I do not even like babies, except my own, because they are a bit boring according to me, like all babies even my own….
I will probably come into my role as a nana, when this child will start to set boundaries by saying no. With other words when some of its character will show itself to the world.
I will hopefully show him and my soon newest arrival, my cynic view of the world, which will also help them to deal with disappointments with that same world.
But babies do not keep you young, nor do their parents, and worse of all, trying to keep up with youngsters will definitely not keep you young, it will most likely exhaust you like it does me, even though I have lots of energy…
You see when you are old, which I am, you have (if you are lucky) also become a lot wiser to the world. You relate and relatively enjoy life on a whole different level.
You see situations arrive and silly solution being made by yours and others kids and you might if asked, give them some of your wisdom, but mostly you are suppose to be stumm because you are old and all these today youngsters have it all figured out, probably like I did at their age.
I wish I could give all my knowledge to them, but I only acquired it after (in most cases) hitting my head against the wall, so the only thing I could wish for is that they will be more careful and stop just in front of the wall and adjust their world view, because my “wisdom” was acquired the hard way. How easy would it be if I could give them my whole vocabulary and its grammar in Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish and German which took me a life time to acquire..
Now I have one huge advantage: I have this incredible boyfriend who has knowledge and experience far beyond his years, I will spar quite a few rounds with him, teaching him even easier ways to attain what he wants, if he so wants.
I will also teach him the basics of my language and the basics of manners/ways which are used over here and not on his continent, so he can adapt so much easier than he would otherwise.
The difference is that although he could be, he is not my son, he is eager to be taught new ways and looks up to me somewhat.
And that makes you feel old and young at the same time!
I have no regrets, none in my life and l have lived quite hard at times, but sometimes I would have loved to have met him earlier, so our life journey might have become a lot longer than it will be now, because I realise that I am going towards my pension while he is still studying and I will have to take the responsibility to cut him loose in order to offer him the freedom to make his own life, without having me as a block on his leg.
And I will do that and yes he does keep me young, except he is not a child anymore, probably has not been in years, but he does do crazy things and I enjoy sharing them.
And if I learned one thing throughout, I have learned to enjoy life as much as I can, preferably to the hilt, because that is part of my character.
I will feel young because I do not know how to feel old, I will probably become as eccentric as hell, but I will never feel old enough to pick up my old age pensioners pass..
Like I was asked at the Bazar the other day while buying food: is he your son??
Nope, he is not! Seeing his confusion, I tried to help: “he is my boyfriend….”
He looked long and hard at us both and then said: “you did very well !”
I smirked and smiled because I did, but not for the reason he thought.
I did well because I have indeed the most gorgeous, sweetest, funniest, utterly brilliant minded and above all very attentive boyfriend anyone could wish for!
And I hope he keeps me young for a longggggg time!
PS from now on we will help the world to adapt to our relationship by explaining that he is my friend and let them come to their own conclusion instead of embarrassing them by the truth!
I wish you all to have a great day and a even better weekend!