Where Seventeen Went

Holidays like Thanksgiving always remind me of generational shiftings.  We are all in constant flux, moving from season to season, even as we watch those around us do the same.  

And when I think about those changes, my mind always goes to this favorite post of mine, “Where Seventeen Went.” I first wrote it seven years ago but every year that I reread it, it remains timeless and true. It was especially poignant as Sarah and I worked together on yesterday’s meal and I thought about all the changes and seasons in our lives through the years.  

So thankful that she is still here with us; I am looking forward to us celebrating many more Thanksgivings to come.

WHERE SEVENTEEN WENT
First posted in 2009

As I sat down last Sunday at the table in my parents-in-law’s dining room, I couldn’t help but think back to the first time I had ever pulled a chair up to their teak wood table. I was just seventeen years old.

Seventeen. Was I ever that young? 

Because now as I find my place again at that table, I am thirty years past seventeen. How did that happen? I am a mom. My parents-in-law are grandparents. My son is bringing his girl friend to eat at that same table where the generations have visited and revisited and the years have taken flight.

Truthfully? I’m not sure that I’m ready for all this generational shifting. I’m not sure that I’m ready to acknowledge that I’m no longer the seventeen-year old, the new kid at the table, the daughter-in-law-to-be, the young girl on the brink of the rest of her life.

Somehow I have morphed from seventeen into forty-seven and no one even told me it was happening. No one told me that I would go to sleep a few times, cook a few meals, change a few diapers, travel a few miles, and wake up a few mornings later to discover that thirty years had passed.

Seventeen-year old kids should be warned about that.

Seventeen-year olds should be told, Don’t take Thursday afternoons for granted. Don’t wish for the day when you’ll be eighteen. Or twenty-one. Be happy that you’re seventeen because one day you’ll turn a page on the calendar and you’ll be forty-seven and you’ll wonder where seventeen went.

You’ll wonder where the wrinkles came from. You’ll wonder how you survived the heartache that life brought with it. And you’ll wonder why you didn’t always treasure the joys that were birthed out of the heartaches. You will be well aware of the fact that you made a few mistakes and learned a few lessons as you glance in the mirror and see a face that is no longer young. And you will ask, “Why didn’t I know all this at seventeen?”

Seventeen doesn’t last forever. But neither does forty-seven. I know that the next time I blink, I’ll be seventy-seven and looking back thirty years at today. The generations will have once again regenerated and I will be the gray-headed lady at the dinner table whom everyone is calling Grandma.  I’ll remember the days when I was seventeen and I’ll remember the days when I was forty-seven and I will be ever so glad for those lovely days.

And yet I wouldn’t ever choose to go back, because seventy-seven will be a good age. Just like forty-seven is a good age. Just like seventeen was a good age.

In fact, you know what? Every age is a good age. Every age reminds me that I’m still alive, that I still have gifts to give, that I still have adventures to experience. And even when hard times come, the seasoning of the years will remind me that I can always find pearls in the pain.

I am very much aware that the days I’m living now will soon fade and that the calendar leaves will soon fall. I know that in some nostalgic moment down the road, I will look back at this sweetest of all generations when Nathan and Sarah’s laughter still fills our home. I’ll think of how I was so aware that the winds of time were blowing harder and stronger and that one day they would blow those children right out my front door and take them to meet the loves of their lives and they would have children of their own and put their feet under their own tables in their own houses.

But happily, beloved children who go away also come back to visit. And the day will come when Nathan and Sarah will bring their own children home; they will sit at our table and look around and say, “I remember when I sat here when I was seventeen.” They will feel sad about it. They will feel happy about it. And then they will count their blessings and hug their mamma and go on living.

But you can’t see all that at seventeen. And that’s how it should be. One of the things that age carries with it is those kinds of special secrets, imparted only to those who make the journey through the mazes and the miracle of the years. 

Nathan and Sarah will arrive at forty-seven and they’ll find that it’s really not so bad hanging out in the land of the middle-aged. And my hope is that by the time they get there, I will have set a good example, paved a straight path, and done everything in my power to infuse their journey with joy.

In the ongoing reshaping of their years they will find each day and every decade inhabited by new faces, new lives, and new stories. And one day, in one of their houses, at one of their tables, someone will turn seventeen–someone who will be on the brink of the rest of her life.

And a generation’s journey will begin again.