The Joy of Cross-Generational Friendships
I recently came across a newsletter from The New York Times with an article containing advice for aging well. Or, more accurately, aging “exuberantly.”
I took the bait and opened the email and found what was probably my favorite tip of all: surround yourself with friends who aren’t of your generation. I imagine that stood out to me because, just a few days before reading the article, I had been asking a Gen-Z extended family member about what fulfills her.
This probably won’t come as a surprise, but her answers were FAR different from mine!
They also weren’t wrong. In fact, back when I was her age, I would have had all those same responses. Fulfillment has to do with the phase of life we’re in.
These two little back-to-back occurrences — the conversation and the NYT newsletter — led me to take stock of other cross-generational relationships in my life (both my own and those of others I know) and the impacts they have on our well-being.
30-40… or 60 or 70
There’s a tennis group at a club I once played at that consists mostly of moms whose kids are out of the house. That is, except for the one younger woman on the team about 20 years their junior. She was a star player in high school and played recreationally in college but came down with a case of the yips after a negative experience on a post-collegiate competitive team.
She refused to play tennis with anyone but her closest friends until her former boss recruited her to join because the team needed another player so that they wouldn’t have to forfeit the season. She initially resisted, insisting that she’d be more of a liability than an asset, but after some convincing, she played anyway.
Her yips aren’t cured, but this story still has a happy ending. She’s more confident now that she has a group of ladies to play with who view tennis as a fun hobby rather than a cutthroat competitive sport.
And her teammates appreciate her because, even though her groundstrokes aren’t great, her energy levels are through the roof. She runs down almost every ball, and as a result, they give up fewer points to their opponents. It’s a win-win.
Fully Booked
My neighborhood has a book club that’s been going on for more than 20 years. (It’s very casual, and I must confess, we don’t always read the books.) The club consists of mostly women in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, and even that span of ages has been illuminating. Some of these women came of age shortly after World War II, and their world view was shaped by much different forces than my own.
One of our members recently lost her husband after a long illness (but an even longer life together), and seeing her cope with grief while also maintaining her sharp sense of humor has been inspiring.
Late last year, a 30-something joined the book club, and she’s now pregnant and expecting her first child next month. So, the group is experiencing the wide spectrum of life in just a few months.
It’s a great reminder that life is lived in seasons, and we must enjoy the seasons while we can, because they’re gone before we know it.
Something Old, Something New
A former colleague is married to a man 13 years older than she is. She was hesitant about their relationship at first, thinking it would be a bad idea to commit to someone who was in such a different phase of life than she was. But she got past those reservations, and they recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
“I think we talk about retirement a lot more than other Millennial couples and I’ve probably listened to Nirvana more in the last few years than I have in my entire life,” she says. “But otherwise it doesn’t seem like he’s that much older.”
And maybe that’s the most illuminating thing about cross-generational relationships: The more cross-generational friends we have, the more we’re reminded that age truly is just a number.