It feels like just yesterday that it was Maddie’s birthday. Ok, that’s because it was just yesterday that it was Maddie’s birthday. She turned 23, though despite getting older by a year, she still remains the baby in our household.
Mitch, whose birthday is somewhere around Memorial Day (I’m not even sure he knows when exactly it is, #sorrymitch) is 25. Laura’s birthday falls a few weeks before mine in September, around Labor Day actually, and she turned 25 this fall.
I’ve got the ancient bones in the household. Before I arrived in July there were rumors (among many others) that I was in my thirties. While that isn’t exactly true, it is true that I’m closer to 30 than 20, as I turned 26 in September. And while I may not be in my thirties, sometimes I do feel like I’m from a different generation than the other volunteers. How could they never have heard Wheatus’ epic anthem “Teenage Dirtbag”? Or not gone through a goth phase? Or be born in the nineties? Quite frankly, it’s appalling.
My age often elicits teasing, suggesting that I’m nearing death, that my best years are behind me, that my clock is ticking. But like any older woman, my aging bones come with a level of confidence that allows me not to feel so self conscious when I turn in for the night at 9:30pm. or turn down a night out on the town.
But the funny thing about age is that sometimes minor differences, say just eight months between Mitch and me, feels like a lifetime, while other times more pronounced differences seem to matter very little.
I think the volunteer experience at KNOM both highlights and hides the differences that we enter the year with, be it age, work experience, or any other aspect of our lives that help dictate how we act and react to the experiences here in Nome. And while I do sometimes engage in the agist jokes, not minding the teasing, I also revel in the experiences where those differences just melt away. Like all of us learning to fillet a fish for the first time. Or taking our first plunge into the Bering Sea this past summer. Or just still getting comfortable on the radio. We all still fumble over words, announce the wrong time, and misfire songs or sound cuts. And sharing those experiences with my fellow volunteers is what makes this experience so special.
So while Maddie will still remain the baby of the family, the three years of difference between her and me seem so minute when, say, we’re both learning how to fix an electrical plug, as we did just last night.