A 23-Year Old Sad to No Longer Be 22

December 15, 1963, Sunday

The other day I turned twenty-three.  It saddens me to pass from my years of extreme youth.  No longer am I too young to be teaching school.  On Wednesday I received these words from Mom:

When you get this it will probably be your birthday, and though I suppose it will be a routine for you, I will be thinking about what a thrill I had when they brought you in the first time to see me in the Phillips House, Boston.  You were a beautiful baby, and since then I have been so happy that you were beautiful, inside and out.  You have been a joy to many people, and always to your own family.

It seems vain to record such words, but it is the idea that in one’s eyes I am remembered as a newborn that struck me.  It is so rare that we get an objective glimpse of our own family, especially Mom and Dad.  It is refreshing to think of them as fellow humans with emotions not unlike my own.

I was incentivized to write my memoir in part because I felt that the opportunity to see what the span of one’s life over eight decades might look like.  Is it uphill to higher plateaus on to the end or does it turn downhill at some point?  Do we become progressively wiser or is the pursuit of wisdom supplanted by routine and the fallback on old and comfortable ideas?  What becomes of one’s faith?  Does it die away or does it grow stronger to meet increasingly painful experiences?  Here at age 81, this is how I would answer the questions here raised:

·       First of all, I no longer dislike birthdays.  I am glad to be 81.  What will this year be like?  Will 82 even be better?

·       Downhill, uphill?  Thus far, each year has been better than the one that preceded it, and that’s the truth.

·       Wiser?  In some things and in some ways.  For instance, I’ve learned to consider my limitations and to accept them.  Routine, as in good habits, may be the better part of wisdom; but I am conscious of my tendency to fall back on ideas that are comfortable for me, so I am trying to see the nuances of matters that previously were to me black or white.

·       Faith?  God has sent me just enough of the “increasingly painful experiences” to grow my faith, and part of that growing has been to be more comfortable with the Not Knowing.