BABY BOOMER LOVE: AFTER THE FIRE

Don’t Burn Baby Boomer Love Letters, Review Them On BoomerPdx.

via buzzfeed.com

From The BoomerPdx Archive:

“I think at the age 27-29 is when you first really feel a ‘generation gap’ or are actually aware of the one’s below you.

Naturally that means the ones above you are pushed into another level also.

Do me a favor. Don’t get caught up in the role you think you should be in. You will be better off.

Marriage is not the only way to be happy, but I do think you need to make a commitment to something.

What I mean is we all end up with a label. We’re either searching for one or searching for how not to have one.

You can’t find a niche? That’s because there isn’t one.

No one belongs anywhere so just live your life. The fact is, few care who you are so you can be anybody.

You were, and are, running from or to someplace you’ll never know. You ran to New York, away from NY, and back to Oregon.

Are you still working to be a writer or have you given up the literary world?

Your typing skills are improving greatly. So either it takes you ten hours to write a letter or you’ve been doing some writing. Well, which?

Take care of yourself (for once, please.)”

“Move on,” they say.

“Don’t get stuck.”

This is the sort of advice that works.

It worked for Satchel Paige, famous for saying, “Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.”

Does moving on mean posting baby boomer love letters from the seventies from someone who changed your life? Of course it does.

“Marriage is not the only way to be happy, but I do think you need to make a commitment to something.”

Sound like a text book for baby boomer love to you? Me too.

Running across letters from thirty five years ago that read like text books are a treasure to share.

The penpal who wrote this went on to an outstanding career in education. Who doesn’t have a soft spot for teachers.

Before that she was an outstanding Oregon Duck, which is where we met. I was an English major, always a sexy field of study.

She’d dated an Italian prince, a football player, and a fraternity dork at Oregon.

I was the last resort of keeping her in state.

Baby boomer love blossomed.

She still left, but not because of me.

With a class load between eighteen and twenty one hours each quarter her last year, she graduated early.

The plan was putting her degree to work for her, and that meant leaving. I had to get busy.

You’ve heard about that laid back 70’s vibe? This is a big part of it:

“You were, and are, running from or to someplace you’ll never know.”

One of my favorite lines and not because it sounds like “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.”

More like Jackson Brown:

“Honey you really tempt me
You know the way you look so kind
I’d love to stick around but I’m running behind
You know I don’t even know what I’m hoping to find
Running into the sun but I’m running behind”

Finding letters from those who knew you in 1977 is a good checklist for who you are in 2015.

I ran off to New York? When a decent woman cared enough to notice, but not tag along?

Lessons learned? You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you might find, you get what you need.

Cue the choir, Mick.

Are you the same? A little different?