I barely knew my grandparents because we lived in different countries, they in Holland and we in Canada.
Well into my own life, I learned that my father did not like his father who had been a supporter of Hitler in the 1930s. This was a source of deep shame in our family but was almost never talked about. Not talking about stuff was a strong characteristic of the family I grew up in.
Of note, my mother’s mother lived until age 101.
My father was a farmer. His idea of being a good father was to put food on the table, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads, not unusual for his generation. I have no memory of ever playing with my father, not once. He was hard working, very honest, uneducated but quite intelligent.
My mother was always worried about something. She was a wife and a mother, not much of an identity beyond these roles. After my father died, she confided to me that she would have preferred to have been a career woman but that was not an option for her generation.
Attending my mother’s 100th birthday party in 2019 was a very special experience in my life.
In hindsight, I think my parents both carried a lot of unprocessed trauma. They lived in German occupied Holland during WWII and almost never spoke about those years. In 1954 they moved to Canada and began new lives.
I was a teenager in the very turbulent 1960s. I considered my parents to be old-fashioned, foreign and out of touch with the way the world was. My attitude was typical of my generation, rebellious, do not trust anyone over thirty. I left home at age seventeen. My father told me I would regret it and that I was too immature to make it on my own. I did make it on my own and I never regretted it.
In my twenties I was a True Believer in a benign Christian cult. I was focused on getting married, building a career and buying a house. I married at age 22, obtained professional credentials as an accountant at 25 and bought a house at 28.
I had the classic male midlife crisis. My worldview and belief system totally collapsed. My career hit a wall. My marriage almost failed. But I like the version of myself that emerged from all this.
I had about five very dark years during which I once seriously considered suicide. I was getting professional help for my mental health challenges. Again, my marriage almost failed.
Then my life took a significant upturn. I ended up in the best job of my mediocre career. I retired at age sixty.
In 2012 my wife and I moved to Mexico. At first I had some trouble adjusting and I was once again in therapy. But after a couple of years I felt I was truly living my Golden Years.
And as the world suffers from the metacrisis, the last two years feel like the best years of my life for me personally.
I discovered a love for running at age fifteen and I am still going strong. It has been the best way for me to deal with stress my whole life. Running as a spiritual practice is not a crazy idea, the rhythm, the breathing, feeling embodied and grateful.
As for my twenty-five year cult experience, better to walk with a crutch than fall flat on your face.
I feel that I just barely coped with life’s challenges but did okay and am thriving in retirement. But I have great doubts about my ability to cope were I a thirty year old today. Doomer Optimism both inspires and mystifies me.