I've outlived myself
My 20-year-old daughter decided she doesn't want anything to do with me anymore. She has told me a number of times that the 70s were 50 years ago and I need to become current with this generation, so she has rejected me. How could I possibly do that? I was born in a small rural mining community in 1963, where mom and dad went to church and the kids went to Sunday School every Sunday. Like most mining communities, mine was socially conservative. That's the socio-cultural world I was born into. During the Hippie Movement, many parents got into it -- the music, the fashion, the whole bit. Others didn't listen to Credence Clearwater Revival. My parents, for example, listened to Charlie Pride, Tom T. Hall, Jim Reeves, etc. I grew up with an entirely different set of values, principles, morals, and influences than this current generation. When you are born and raised into a religion, it just becomes a part of your inner-being, and these things are simply what define me. They are just what and who I am. Even if I was capable of re-programming myself, this generation is one that I just cannot understand no matter how hard I have tried. One by one, I saw the mines close down. The mills and smelters closed with them. The trains stopped running. People moved away; this was all in the late '60s and early '70s. I was influenced by those events. I was influenced by seeing the Vietnam War, the protests, the race riots, and the Charles Manson murders play out on the news. How do I, at 57 years old, simply stop in my tracks and undo everything that has influenced me, and became a part of me, to adopt a current generational culture that I am 37 years too old for? The mines are gone now. The mills are gone, the smelters are gone, the trains and the train tracks are gone. Most of the men I knew who worked at those jobs are gone now, along with the old culture, the old, European languages, as well as the polka and waltz music they, and we, all knew and enjoyed. I feel alone now. I feel isolated and separated, and I feel like I have outlived my time and myself. It just all seems surreal and hopeless now. It really does.