Things I Can't Say

Tips and Tales from an Introverted Mom

The Best Years of Our Lives

things they can't sayJoey is a freelance writer and small business consultant. She lives North of Pittsburgh with her husband, daughter, and their two small dogs.  When not attempting to dominate the world of social media, Joey enjoys reading, cooking, gardening, volunteering at church, and spending time with her little family. She posts recipes and life observations regularly on her blog, Big Teeth & Clouds.

“These are the best years of your life,” my dad said frequently. He had a whole speech about it. The first one happened when I was about sixteen.

“You’ve said that before, Dad,” I told him with an eye roll I’d perfected around that time.

It seemed like Dad was always repeating himself.

“This is my favorite meal,” he said during every dinner consumed between 1986 and 1992.

“Hoo Hah,” he’d cry randomly for years after watching Scent of a Woman.

So the “best years of your life” speech was taken with a large grain of salt as the rambling of an old man (he wasn’t that old at the time) who would probably always earnestly declare my life was at its peak.

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I didn’t realize he’d stopped saying it until a recent spring afternoon. I found myself, age 33, with a nine-year-old girl clambering onto my lap. We were visiting my Mom and Dad on a Saturday afternoon, talking about something that wasn’t very memorable until…

“These are the best years of your life, Jo,” he said.

“I smiled. Yeah, this is pretty good,” I said and hugged my daughter.

“Not you,” he said as he patted my mother’s hand. “Us. These are the best years of our lives.”

“What? What about me?” I sputtered.

“I meant me and your mother. We’re retired. We’re in relatively good health. Our kids are grown and we worry about you, we do, but not like we did when you were our responsibility.”

“We could pick up and leave for a month,” my mom added. “We don’t want to, but we could.”

“You,” my dad continued, “you are like at the bottom right now. You have a long way to go.”

“These aren’t the best years of my life?” I asked.

“No. They’re not.”

We continued our banter for some time, Dad reassuring me that I have something to look forward to (if I make it) and me lamenting my status in the valley of the shadow of parenting. For a moment it seemed my prime had snuck up suddenly and just then was gone, never to be heard from again. It was a rather distressing moment.

But occasionally Dad is mistaken. It’s not so easy to think that he’s wrong. Not as easy as it was when I was sixteen anyway. And I can’t think of him as an old man lest I should wake up one morning and find myself an old woman. But these years are good for me, better than my teens for sure. I’m fulfilled and confident and loved. I have everything I’ve always wanted. Dad, thirty years ahead of me in life, feels the same.

So I look at that as a win. Perhaps with any luck I’ll have a whole bunch of best years. Best decades even. And when I get to those years my dad likes, I’ll make the best of them too.

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Comments

  7. The writing style of this post was so neat. The story really came to life. Retirement seems so far for me…since I’m only 27!

    • Thanks Tracey! You do have a way to go before retirement, but having a child has made me feel like I’m permanently in one of those “life comes at you fast” commercials. It seems like it’s all on warp speed these days!

  9. I love that I find joy in watching my kids have the best time of their lives. I love how you dad would tell you that most of the stages of life were the best time.

  13. I loved this post! My husband is always talking about “our time” once the kiddos grow up and move out. I am still stuck in mommy mode for sure, kids grow up SO fast and I am enjoying my little ones while they’re still little and wanting to sit on mommys lap and get tucked in at night!

    • You have to enjoy every moment, but it is nice to feel like there will always be something to look forward to. I don’t like to think about my daughter moving out. I have a feeling that will be more bitter than sweet when it happens.

  15. I don’t know if I can pick a best year of my life. I think I’m having the best years as time goes on – it keeps changing – because there are new adventures out there!

  17. What a fantastic post – and such great advice from a dad. I definitely try to live as if this IS the best time of my life, and I’m pleasantly surprised when the next stage is even better. 🙂

  18. You dad sounds like a wonderful man. But I think the adventures of raising your daughter will be some of the best memories of your life. Raising my son and all the adventures we had together mean so much to me now that he is a grown man.

  20. I look at different parts of my life as the best years ever but for different reasons.  The best times now make you appreciate the better times later.  I’ve loved raising my kids but I am looking forward to having time with my husband when they move away.

  21. I think it would be quite sad just to spend the whole time you’re actively parenting waiting for your kids to grow up. I know that’s not what my dad did – I was there! I’m pretty sure he’s mostly teasing me.

  22. What a great story! I like to think that every moment is one of the best I am going to have. Makes me appreciate the now more that waiting for better to come along later.

  23. Oh Joey how I adore your dad!! What an incredible man to have that kind of attitude in life! WOW. And I love that he embraces your mom and this season he is in, and so deeply values his time with his wife. That just touched me so deeply…

    And of course your take on it all, my friend. I feel the SAME way- this moment in time, this season… how could it ever get any better than this? We are blessed women indeed!!

  25. I definitely agree that it’s the way you look at it. Right now I think these are the best years of my life. I’m sure it will change in 10 years.

    • I really do remember my dad sincerely enjoying my childhood years. My teen years? That was probably the pit of despair, but it’s the responsibility of children to make their parents miserable for at least a little while, right?

  29. Hoo Hah! These ARE the best years of our lives. It really is all about perspective and today I am choosing to believe this, here and now, is the best – not yesterday or tomorrow. Because really all we have is today and I want to make the best of it, even when others don’t think it’s the best stage. 🙂