Gen X

It’s just the two of us today. It’s raining and we joke about our hair as we run from the car to the café. When we sit down my daughter shakes her head and the curls settle with youthful nonchalance. I, on the other hand, grab everything I can of my mop and twist it back into a bun. I am not young.

We share the corner of a table and a meal. I drink coffee, she drinks tea and we eat and talk, and talk and eat.

During a break, I look up and lock eyes with someone from the yoga world. They come over and I make introductions. This is my daughter, I say. This is my friend. Afterwards, we stroll back to the car along freshly washed streets.

She’s only a little older than me, she notes.

How funny, I say. I hadn’t considered her age before.

I get a sideways look. You’re not going to overthink this, are you?

No.

Sigh. Rolling of the eyes. (Simultaneously. Because, genetics.)

I agree. I am.

–

I go to an event where the speaker is 23 years old. Her age, we find out midway, causes a ripple of wows because she has achieved a lot in a relatively short period of time. No matter her youth, I hear wise, thoughtful words. Her story unravels and, as for us all, includes a time frame of reference points, of achievements and mistakes, of success and gratitude and future plans. She inspires me.

I participate in an event where my group probably has an average age of mid-to-late-twenties. Not a concern until I see said mid-to-late-twenty-year-olds in action. Then, a little furrow settles upon my weathered brow as I realize that I might let them down. No matter their youth, they don’t suggest a cup of tea and a lie down. I get dressed up, tossed in the water, and work it out. They motivate me.

I talk ideas with someone at an event who has two children under three and works full-time. She’s not yet 30. It’s after 10. I am tired.

–

I’ve been feeling my age lately. Or feeling my way, rather.

One of the joys of practicing yoga in a studio is doing so alongside others of all ages. It makes for interesting conversation in the changing room and keeps my overall yoga experience more in line of what I optimistically envisage yoga to be. Having made friends, good friends, with other yogis since first stepping into a studio almost seven years ago, I’d considered it a freaking great bonus to talk about things other than kids and schools and a double bonus to continue those friendships even beyond the common ground of yoga. Some of them have never known life without cordless phones, some of them Skype their grandchildren.

With The Yoga Connection though, I’ve become aware on a daily that many of those I talk, meet and engage with are mainly (almost certainly) much (much) younger than me.

And I love it.

Mostly. Except for the group close-ups.

To be clear, I have no problem with getting older. To state the obvious it’s happening anyway and honestly, it’s life altering to start giving no fucks about things that quite literally used to paralyse me. For me, yoga and continuing birthdays are a gift.

What I appreciate is the point of view that comes from a different place than my normal. I want to acknowledge and celebrate the encouragers in this rapidly growing yoga and wellness community.

I encounter again and again a real generosity of spirit, along with a sense of equanimity throughout our dealings that I swear wasn’t around in 1990. It feels fresh and optimistic. (Yup, definitely not 1990.)

There’s a genuine support of others; real enthusiasm and encouragement. There are teachers who go to other teachers’ classes, students who keep studying, striving to learn. They start businesses and collaborate with confidence and high expectations, thinking globally with wider reaching intentions. They make things happen, often in more than one field. They give back.

Of course whether they’re still living at home and not making their beds, I don’t know.

That optimism will probably get a little, if not entirely, smooched into the Turkish rug as they go forth through the kidlet years, the house years, the money, oh god, the money years (the never-ending, relentless, worrying, suffocating money years), but it’s more than that. Within this wholesome and holistic community of yogis, yoginis, wholefood advocates, environmentalists, activists, thinkers, doers and dreamers there is also an underlying hard and fast drive to achieve big.

Nothing unusual about that in itself. Just because we love yoga, meditate, shop consciously and are vegan doesn’t mean you’ve not got your eye on the dollar.

Except where I hail from, the ashes of a lovingly named band of cynical slackers called Generation X, you’re kind of one or the other. Someone who mispronounces Moet and drives a convertible with partner number three or an old-school Ibiza hippie and in-between is a wide open space full of some really nice people who have fallen into jobs and lives that pinch around the edges and were never envisaged when we mocked people who networked and spent our uni funds on travel and CDs.

No? Just me, then.

Whatever letter of the alphabet you fall under I don’t believe that any of us go through life without ever feeling at some point like we’re treading water, just waiting for the good stuff to properly start.

So I’ll continue to enjoy where I’m at alongside my gorgeous, poreless peers and if they ever need it, reassure them that I’m in awe of their approach to success. In life and in work they’re going for it and whether they recognise it or not they’re powerful beyond measure exactly where they are.

–

I drop her off at her flat laden with fruit and vegetables and not a whiff of instant noodles and I tell her how I used to feed an entire flat with leftover food from the café I worked at on Saturdays.

Uh huh, so technically stealing then, my moral compass flings over her shoulder as she gets out of the car.

It’s a generational thing, I tell her. It’s how we got our five plus a day. And cake.

– Jane

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© The Yoga Connection 2016