One View

Phoebe on the right with her fellow PhD friends.

Now that I'm 50 years old, I look at the world differently. It was inevitable, I suppose and I know I'm not the first 50 year old to feel this way, still it's curious to look around and assess the world from this misnamed halfway point.

Last night was our friends' daughter's (Phoebe's) PhD celebration at her parents' house. Doris and Stephen are like family and therefore by extension, Phoebe and her family are part of ours. For me, Phoebe represents energy -- the kind of energy I don't think I ever had even when I was her age (early 30s). In the past 5 years she has gotten married with a large wedding at her parents' house, she had her first child, and completed her PhD in Philosophy and Anthropology with a focus on shell fossils.

Just writing that paragraph made me tired. Was I that ambitious 20-25 years ago? I don't think so, but I know I could stay up later than I can now. I know my body didn't hurt as much as it does now. And I know I could eat a helluva lot more than I can now and not suffer the consequences.

But then I look at Phoebe's mom, the Grandmother to Phoebe's daughter Jocelyn. Doris is in her mid-late 60s and seems to have more energy than Phoebe. Two days a week she provides daycare for Jocelyn and two other days a week she provides daycare for her other grandchild, Maisy (only a few months older than her cousin Jocelyn). Occasionally she watches Elliot and like one of those relationship mazes, he is the son of her son-in-law's brother and his wife.
Elliot has a new baby sister, Penelope and while she has yet to stay with Doris and Stephen, her other Grandmother steps in.

This, I suppose, is what everyone thinks about when they define nuclear family and even though it's gotten a bad rap as of late, it's a pretty sweet deal. Everyone seems extremely happy with the arrangement. In addition to all the daycare, there's a weekly evening meal where the whole lot of them get together for a massive dinner that includes food fit for the vegetarians and the carnivores, the lactose intolerant and the gluten-free dieters.

Is this what I want in my life? No. I'm happy. I'm content. I like the relationship I have at home with Ann, with my friends, and with my biologicals. It all suits me and it does not wear me out...well, not on a weekly basis. But mine is just one view of family; Doris and Steven's is another view. Theirs suits them as much as mine suits me.

Yet, like a Venn Diagram we cross, sharing a family space of commonalities. Their family represents energy and laughter, and accomplishments. Mine represents the same laughter, but it's much more relaxed and settled. There aren't big things to get accomplished and though my niece may end up with a PhD at some point in her life, no one is working on such accomplishments while getting married and then getting pregnant.

Phoebe's homemade PhD cake (made by her mother, Doris) representing the three degrees of the three candidates - fish, charcoal and shells...yes, all edible.