… and something else, though I couldn’t tell you what because my brain is going with age and I am officially of the time in my life that I walk in a room and stare blankly at the wall because I can’t remember what it was that I needed to do.

Alas.

But! I do remember I start these blogs out with the tea I am having this morning, which is a good old-fashion black cuppa… Yorkshire Gold to be specific. I enjoy a good black tea, though this one is not quite as smooth as my usual Murchie’s blends; however, my order of Murchie’s (from Canada) is currently sitting in a FedEx terminal (in the United States) because of the elimination of a little rule about shipments under $800 that has been in effect for decades upon decades.

Yep. The U.S. is burning everything down.

I love this meme from K.C. Green because… this is reality and it feels like it has been for a while. However, I sometimes wonder if my perception is informed by my age.

Am I becoming that old person that complains about everything?

Oh dear.

Actually, I am not entirely upset by this change of pace because there are things that I remember from when younger that are different than they are now; and no, I am not talking about the internet though I am the last generation that grew up without the internet. For reference, I got my first cell phone when I was 20. Yep. A Nokia from Verizon.

Can I get any more cliche?

The biggest thing that is different is social media, but there is also a pace aspect. I hustled in my twenties, seriously hustled, but it never felt frantic. I look at my teenage son and there is this underlying frantic that seems to inform him and his friends, even if they are chilling at home.

Yet, the frantic does not always translate to work ethic.

My husband trains young men and women in sales. They are usually in their early twenties and there is definitely a lack of… motivation, maybe? I’m not sure that is the correct word for what I am describing because it isn’t that they don’t want to succeed in a socially acceptable way, ie money, they do, yet they also worry about work/life balance. There is absolutely nothing wrong with balancing work and life, I am of the firm opinion that work is a job that one does in order to pay bills and enjoy things when not working.

So work/life balance is a good thing.

Yet it means something different for twenty-somethings than it does for forty-somethings.

And I know that a lot of people roll their eyes and call bunk on generational differences but I tell you, there isn’t anything as different as a boomer and a gen-z.

Combine this with the boomers figuratively (and maybe a bit literally, that would be exciting!) burning things down. Maybe something will grow out of the destruction for the gen-z, and also gen-alpha, to hold on to… or maybe they will embrace the chaos and destruction as their reality, and won’t that be an interesting social experiment?

Either way, there is no question that I am entering the era of… “it was better in my day”… though in reality, it wasn’t, not really. Just different.

So we raise our cuppa… actually, let’s raise a pint, more appropriate in this scenario… to the years ahead. May everything be “fine.”

What are your thoughts, dear readers, of age and generations and if you dare, the state of the world?