the smedley log - suburban scrawl

As I had forgotten…

“It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.”
-Richard Wilbur

It’s not the first time I’ve referred to Richard Wilbur in a blog post (and not likely to be the last, either). The poem from which the above quote is derived is probably my all-time favorite. I’m not sure if it started out of some urge to romanticize the struggles of youth, or because it simply tapped that directly into my own sense of those struggles.

As I age slowly here behind a computer keyboard, I often think of the younger people I see every day, and also of my nieces and nephews. I don’t envy them (well, aside from that “youth” aspect). Here’s to hoping they clear “the sill of the world” more easily than I did.

Do youths today have harder struggles than people of our generation? I tend to think they have it a lot harder, especially with how quickly the world is changing. They have to stay on stop of everything in order to survive.

I do envy their youth, but agree with you that I don’t envy the struggles they will have to face. At least we made it

Today’s young people are probably navigating a more dangerous maze than the youth of past generations. There are probably exceptions, but for the most part I’d agree with that.

I’d say it’s harder now too. As a parent, I’d say it’s harder being a parent because it’s so hard being a kid. Does that make sense?

[…] I have nieces now, two of them in or approaching the typically awkward stages of adolescence. This bewilderment with the psyche of young women has been a curiosity of mine for a long time. But now it’s much more scary than anything else. I wrote about “clearing the sill of the world” a few weeks back, and this is a huge chunk of the thought process that filled my mind at the time. […]

[…] I ask because I think it’s somewhat connected to the curiosities I’ve been entertaining (in posts like this and this). Namely, I wonder about people who figure their entire sense of self-worth based on the opinions of other people. I have a hard time imagining a situation in which this method of calculation is very reliable. […]