The People Who Remind You Who You Are

We finished Fleishman Is In Trouble this weekend. I’m glad we stuck with the show (it’s also a book) because the last two episodes were phenomenal. It’s about growing old and changing and wishing you were still the person you were when you were young, even though you want all of adulthood, too. While I don’t share Libby’s thoughts about life, she felt familiar to me, as if she were someone from my Israel trip or Hillel experience.

We followed the final episode with seeing old friends the next day. It was the group’s last Bar Mitzvah. Meaning the parade of B’nai Mitzvot started about a decade ago, and we’ve been steadily attending (or, one time, hosting) them every few months until today. It was the youngest child of the friend who married us, so while we’ll still have B’nai Mitzvot in our future — my friends still have younger kids, and I have cousins, etc. — it was the final one for this group. Next up is weddings.

Which feels like a weird fact. I am still so young. There was an article making the rounds last week about how we don’t feel our age. I definitely don’t. I feel like I’m barely an adult. Like we’re all still the same people we were 20+ years ago when we’d host dinner parties where most people would sit on the floor because we didn’t have enough furniture. When we’d nap on a Saturday afternoon because we had zero responsibilities, and then go out at night during an hour when I’m usually now in pyjamas. I am still that person at heart, even if I don’t see her when I look in the mirror.

Spending time with people who remind you who you are is nice.