[Blarg]

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Anybody who's currently 35, absent some horrible 100% inherited illness, should plan to live WAY WAY longer than 65, with even minimal effort towards a healthy lifestyle. Unless you are dirt-poor, self-destructive, or really unlucky, 90 is more like it.


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Who knows how long anyone will live. I initially planned to live forever, at many points hoped to die in my sleep, at some point realized that my family's history of quadruple bypasses meant I probably wouldn't get the life span I had originally taken for granted as a virtual divine right, and at this point have decided not to plan around things I have no control over or take so many things for granted.

OP, nice post. I found it interesting that some of your points you're hitting on in your 30's, #'s 1 and 2, describe my early 20's, when I was an absolutely ferocious reader and more intensely intellectual, and had long been an inherent skeptic and deconstructionist. Our stages resemble each other's somewhat, but at different points in time. I was never quite the optimist you were, though we all have our own special set of illusions to lose. Your point #3 is one of the more interesting challenges in dealing with people, but it can be very rewarding when you get it right.

As to family things, some get it luckier, some get it better, and I've found it's a huge mistake to judge almost anyone on those things, as just as with a romantic couple, one will never know more than a fraction of what's really going on between people in a family, and it's arrogant to assume one does. We can't control what we started with, and wearing out one's soul with illusions and recriminations helps no one, but if we do the best we can with our few and meager tools, it can be braver and more worthwhile than any number of the happier stories that are allowed to be told. Good luck with your family, even if you have to patch together your story yourself rather than reiterate one of the more popular ones.