I talk often about how I feel like my generation missed a boat or two. We don’t have a cutesy nickname like Baby Boomers or Milenials or even GenXers. It’s like time forgot us. We are sometimes a sandwich generation taking care of parents and kids but that’s about responsibility; there is no community.
We are in-between generations. We are in-betweeners. Eh, not loving it.
The people in my age group went to college, got jobs, had kids, some stayed home, some stayed in a career and both got crap for it. Pensions disappeared, job security became non-existent. We ignore illness until it can be ignored no more.
I’m 48 and the first time I felt at home with friends was in 2011 where our ages ranged from 20-45, experiences ranged equally, only two marriages in the group, one with kids. I fit.
But I also kind of fit with the PTA set; most there were about ten years younger than me, but it still worked.
I also fit with my church where my closest friend just turned 85.
I’m at home on Tumblr when most of my age group thinks it’s a gymnastic group.
I’m equally opinionated on politics and fandom, and I haven’t found a place that blends my passions; that’s what I try to do here. I’d like to continue that, but I’m not sure how to describe it without using potpourri, which I don’t want to use.
I write conversationally, but I also want to be taken seriously, especially in the areas that I consider myself an expert or authority.
I try to balance family, depression, church and writing plus whatever else pops into my head. I’m trying to form a new generational home seemingly alone.
And this is only the part that spewed out this morning on this very bright, white snow day.
Last fall, I started a new format for my blog/website. I gave myself a series of weeklies. Monday through Thursday, I post on a topic – I offer prompts for writing or reflection, a photo, a quotation and the recs that I think help many. I try to collect them all with a weekly theme (beginning this year), so my goals are mainly continuing that.
In September, I began to use a Mead day planner to plan out my site and that’s been working well.
Goal 1: In addition to the daily serial post, I’d like to post a second one related to the theme that I’ve decided on for that week. This week’s theme I’ve titled Groundhogs, Spring is just around the corner. On Fridays, I want to try writing a Reflection each week.
Goal 2: I’ve been published in local small-presses, and self-published a chapbook and a variety of newsletters. I would like to write for money. I’d like to start by monetizing my blog, but I’m not sure how to go about that. I’d like to learn.
Goal 3: Increase my quality of photography and writing and continue learning my craft to gain readers and continue growing as a writer. As an aside, I’d like to expand into travel writing.
Monetizing the blog… I would never discourage you, but I would urge you to branch out and try to write for money, you have the gifts! Then you can leave this be.
My goal is to monetize my blog as well!! Best of luck !!
oh, but we do have a name, the sandwich generation, stuck between looking after our children that do not seem to want to leave home and our aging parents that need care…
I’ve found that most people in my age group who I know have independent parents or their parents have died (in my case), so while I know of the sandwich generation I haven’t seen it in my experience.
Baby boomers have a birth year range as do millennials. I feel lost sometimes.
There is a subsequent designation – Generation or Gen X… Born after the baby-boomers. You are followed by Gen Y. Here is a link. http://www.talentedheads.com/2013/04/09/generation-confused/
Thanks for the link and I’m sorry i missed this comment. I don’t agree with that author’s assessment, though. So presumably, anyone between 1965 and 1980 is a Gen Xer, but in looking at my age peers, I don’t see that we were shaped by the Vietnam War or the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wall was part of the end of the Cold War, and while a big deal it didn’t shape me. I feel more connected to NASA and pop culture (especially television). I would also disagree that my peers are more diverse or tolerant. I find that I’m an anomaly in that category.
I think there were baby boomers and then Millenials and then pop culture or TPTB (the powers that be) backtracked or backslid in order to shoehorn a generation into an economic pigeonhole meant to expand and combine 1950s housewife with a new limited independence and then they forgot about us.
I went to college because I was supposed to. I graduated and moved home. I got married and had kids. None of these was ever a question. I worked and then I stayed home. I had my own business and then I didn’t. I used credit ridiculously but was never able to start a retirement plan. It is literally too late for almost everything, and I know I’m not the only one who’s stuck in that space.
LOL – This is probably an entire post, if not a book but if I think too much on it, it makes me cry.