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What Aging With Your Elderly Parents Looks Like
When we’re too young to comprehend the brutality of the real world, we’re also eager for the years to fly by, so we can get out of the annoying grip of protective parents, who do the job of sparing their offspring a full load of what being a grown-up will entail.
I lived at home part-time, beginning at age eleven, spending half the year away at boarding school, according to traditions of British colonizers. To some degree, I had an idea what it was like to be free from the strictness of my guardians, but going from a disciplined household to the militarized climate of an all-girls boarding school wasn’t an ideal setup for anyone longing for independence.
As a youngster, you are acutely aware of your limitations, and those infuriating moments propel the desire for adulthood, which tends to be romanticized. We draw from pop culture and the mature ones around us, who enjoy the benefits of being older and wiser.
Of course, now that I’m well into adulthood as a constantly flailing mid-lifer, juggling all the stereotypical items assigned to members of my club, the truth about how rapidly accumulating years doesn’t always translate to heightened wisdom is clearer than ever.
But the funny thing about life has to be the unexpectedly harsh lessons that toughen you up after seasons of attacks on…