this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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Sometimes it's weird to look back on middle school, and the teachers who brought our generation up as young kids being told about the future. I'm an adult now, and I feel like an adult now, but in a way it feels like I'm still a part of that group of dumb and naive kids. It doesn't feel that long ago at all. But the reality is that all of us are now pushing 40, and our time there is now wholly irrelevant, and we're so far removed from those years that it's fucking wild. A lot of those teachers are probably dead now.
I don't know how to articulate what it is I'm meaning to say here. It's just weird that we were kids so recently. I don't feel like my life has gone by all that fast, but middle school to 40 somehow did all the same. I feel my age, and I feel as though I've lived to my age, but my memories don't feel distant whatsoever. It feels like that was nine years ago.
Just like I feel like I was still living at home with my dad a few years ago, but I've been living in another country away from my parents for 7 years now, and my dad had been dead since last May.
He was such a good dad.
our parents felt the same thing
Your dad simultaneously saw you as the baby who slept securely in his arms, the child he saw through junior school, the teen who he tried to help steer past his own mistakes and the adult he wistfully spoke of with pride
Imagine how good he must feel to know that you remember him this way.
You have put it in the perfect words. Thank you.
Thank you. This is a beautiful sentiment.
Condolences for your dad. 42 here, my dad is showing his age majorly now.
Looking back I know I lived every single hour but huge leaps of time are just gone. Like, entire jobs I worked for years I have maybe a half dozen memories. On top of that our work product is gone, the company is gone, the building is gone, the entire industry is changed... it's like it was all a dream. I definitely understand the old man looking at a city and saying, "this was all orchards". I used to think it was a wistful phrase, but it's also an expression of disbelief. When we were embedded it all seemed so important. But it all shuffled off with zero fanfare. It really changes how you experience life, and that's how I "feel old".
I lost my last grandparent this Easter. She was much younger then my other grandparents. The 3 of them would be over 120 years old now. I'm a millenial, I'm 40.
Its always good to hear that some of them were good people.
I took my kid to the doctor, and when we left she asked if we could go visit the places I grew up and went to school. Drove by my grade school but didn’t stop in, still in session. Went by my junior high and there was my science teacher, she was probably a few years from retirement.
I said hi and we talked for a bit, told her “no, not a parent, you were my teacher almost 30 years ago”, and she got a huge smile on her face and was really happy one of her students recognized her and talked with her for a while.
Made the trip worth it, but I am glad she didn’t remember me. Was a shithead kid in junior high, but I think we all kind of were at that age.
This is the absolute best gift you can give a teacher, to come back and say to us, "You made a difference; I remember you."
We don't get to know if we really did anything unless this happens.
Source: watching my mum as a 40+ year teacher and my own 10+ years in the profession.
ETA: Space I could not live with.