GenXing ain't no joke
I am a GenXer. I will be 50 this year.
This is both sobering and exciting!
But, don’t get it twisted, I’m out here GenXing like a mother-f—ker!
What is GenXing you may ask?
We are the sandwich generation…..
It’s being a mother, wife, daughter and grandmother all at the same time.
My grandson lives with us 4 days out the week so our daughter can fulfill her military duties.
My parents are trying to move closer to us so I am helping them house hunt in a 55 and older community while they live a whole other state away.
I still have college kids who are attempting to live their best lives and I am trying to allow them space while holding my breath every time they leave the house.
How do I find balance? Is balance even real? Are we still trying to ‘have it all’.
I don’t know if it is obtainable and I do not want to try to find out. I damn sure don’t want to have it all. That shit is exhausting. Hell, I am really just starting to live my real life.
I am currently a 1st year grad student and I’ve always wanted to be a college professor. My 1989 senior superlative was ‘Most Likely to Become a Teacher’. But all that changed when I found out I was pregnant for the 2nd time at 19. I, like most of my friends, were messing with dudes who were selling drugs in the DC area. All of my friends got pregnant and had babies. I was not different. We all settled into our reality of being single moms with dead-beat dads.
Fast forward to 2021, we are all talking about how we allowed societal pressures to force us to put our lives on hold to be moms to these kids so we would not become a statistic: 1980s teen moms with multiple kids and multiple babies’ daddies.
We are GenXing by taking care of our parents, finally finding out what we love, encouraging our own kids and helping our elderly parents. My friend Shelly recently graduated nursing school with honors after her last child graduated from high school. Monica, recently opened up a boutique photography company and me, well I am a full time grad student.
Some friends have walked away from 20yr+ marriages that were draining the life out of them, some of us are contemplating that move. But the one thing all of my GenXer girlfriends are are doing is not taking anyone’s shit anymore.
We are also learning from our kids and their friends. We taught them that they could do and be anything and anyone they want and these jokers are doing it. It makes me happy to see my kids travel at 20yrs old with their friends. I was a momma at 20.
Watching my millennial and GenZ kids live their best lives has inspired me to finally live mine.
I am no longer:
just doing shit for the sake of people pleasing while a little bit of ourselves die.
overlooking shit that pisses me off.
denying myself pleasure or tattoos or weed.
being manipulated to be a good wife, daughter, mother, employee, church member, etc.
So no, GenXing ain’t no joke, but I am grateful to be finding out what I like and don’t like at 49 instead of tolerating shit that could kill me. That almost happened when I experienced a minor stroke in 2019.
This GenXer is setting boundaries. Momma, daddy, hubby, kids, they will survive because that’s what I plan to do.