perspective revisited

last month, i posted about perspective. this morning, i checked out the blogs Google Reader so kindly recommended to me (i've found some real gems that way!) and one called "Starting Over at 24" caught my eye.

now i hope i don't offend any younger readers i may or may not have, but i couldn't help chuckling just a bit. starting *over* at 24?? oh sweet 20-something. you probably don't realize it--and you're probably not going to like hearing this, because i know i wouldn't have--but you can't start over when you've barely gotten started!

listen, i've been there. i know you think you've got all this life behind you already, but the fact is that if i could spend a half hour talking to Dawn v.24, the first thing i would tell her is that she's just at the beginning. she is merely *starting*. you think you've already gotten things underway, but sometimes you stall out in the start & you have to work through some sputtering before you really get going. Dawn v.24 was smack in between what would turn out to be two six-year relationships. i thought i was starting over. truly, i did. i wasn't though (which i only know in retrospect). i had really just kicked off the training wheels & was starting my wobbly maiden voyage into Life.

Dawn v.32 realizes that you *can't* be starting over before you actually start. she also knows that she likes her 30s so much better than her 20s, which is something else i would clue in v.24 on during said half hour. at 30, i actually *did* start over but it was with a new perspective. i know now that i may not be just starting but i'm also really still just barely more than baby & i have a lot of living left ahead of me, despite how much it feels i have already lived.

as one of my favorite quotes from Carrie Bradshaw in the S&TC movie says:
"Have fun, that's what your twenties are for. Your thirties are for learning the lessons and your forties? Are for paying for the drinks."

i think the pivotal point in life comes the moment you stop thinking you've lived so much & start seeing that you're nowhere near as full of life experience as you thought you were. perspective also tells me there's no way i would have believed that at 24. that's the thing about perspective, i guess. you only gain it when you have something visible in the rear view mirror.