Thursday, November 25, 2010

Reality check

My love-hate relationship with Facebook continues, lol. I've been reconnecting there recently with some of my high school classmates. I graduated in 1979 -- 31 years ago!! (eek) -- &, like me, my classmates will be turning 50 in 2011.

In catching up with what they're doing now, they naturally mention their kids. While some of them still have children at home, most of them now have children at university -- and the ones still at home are by & large teenagers, not toddlers and certainly not babies. My friends & classmates are facing empty nests -- at the same time that I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I never had a full one to begin with.

And some of them are grandmothers now too -- including, as I found out through the grapevine this summer, one of my best friends, who married while we were still in university and started her family a few years after we graduated. Her daughter is now about 23 & just had her first child. Two of my classmates got married right out of high school &, by the time we had our 10-year reunion in 1989, had four kids each -- I have little doubt that they are probably grandmothers now too.

The sister of one of my friends was in my sister's class, one year behind ours. She was pregnant when she graduated, at 18. When that baby, her daughter, was 18 & graduating from high school, she too was pregnant, making my friend's sister a grandmother at 36. If you do the math, that grandchild (and there's been another since then) is now heading for the teen years. Within my own family, my cousin, whose daughter was born when he was 21, became a grandfather at 40 (his daughter was pregnant when SHE graduated). (I would NOT have wanted to have a baby at 18 -- no thank you!! -- but there has to be -- should be -- a happy medium between teen pregnancy & no (successful) pregnancy at all, don't you agree??)

While I've stayed in touch with some of my friends over the years pre-Facebook, & already knew on some level about their kids growing up, I find myself marvelling at how quickly the years have flown by. I only have to look at our own two nephews, one at university & one in the working world. How the heck did this happen??

It's all driven home to me, again, just how rapidly my childbearing years are receding into the distance.

6 comments:

  1. Facebook can be so torturous. It is why I got off when my daughter died. I have only been back on for the past few months and I find so many landmines there.
    Thinking of you and wishing you gentle days.

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  2. One of my real-life friends is about to become a grandmother. Argh.

    I've connected with people I was overseas with in 1980 (one year younger than you). There is one who I've discovered lives in the same suburb as me. Her FB is all about her kids. I haven't bothered contacting her. And another - who I chose not to 'friend' - still managed to put up a scan photo of his new son and another friend reposted it. Argh. We may be past our child-bearing years, but there's still the power to hurt.

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  3. Hope's Mama is 100% right, Facebook is a minefield at the best of times, innocent status updates can carry weight that their authors are completely unaware of.

    I've recently discovered a bunch of old classmates - all of whom have children and while happy for them, all it's managed to do really is make me feel inadequate and even more of a failure!

    ~x~

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  4. I wish I had something better to say. Every so often, I realize that infertility and perinatal mortality are the gifts that keep giving. It's not just that we couldn't get pregnant, it's that we were pregnant and so very, very close - really almost there.

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  5. Just letting you know that I'm thinking of you and I'm sure it's not an easy thing to handle. Many, many heartfelt hugs sweetie. Always.

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  6. I have the same experience with FB. Most of the time I enjoy it, but there are many moments when I see my old high school friends/acquaintances and their multitudes of children and their spouses and it hurts. Meanwhile, I post a lot about my dog. :)

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