A Party in the Key of Life

We went to a great party this weekend. It was a party with lots of old friends, and it was the kind of party where anyone who wasn't your old friend felt like she was by the end of the evening (and the end of the evening arrived long after the beginning: the invitation said 3-6, we ordered Chinese for everyone at 7, and the last guests left at 10!).

One notable thing about this party was that the guests included seven decades of girls and women: a seven month old, a six year old (E), two ten year olds (including M), a high school student, a few college students, some twentysomethings, a thirtysomething newlywed and another newly pregnant, moms from the late 30s to early 50s (that was me in the 40s), and two 60ish grandmothers.

The only person who didn't have such a great time was the sad recent college graduate. She was quite forthright about her plight. She graduated in June from a precious liberal arts college where she had been told for years that she was the best. Then she set out for the big city to make her fortune (OK, given her artistic aspirations, fortune is not likely, so perhaps I should say fame), discovered that she was a dime a dozen, and ended up in a menial service job that I can't name because it is just too bizarre and specific, but suffice to say it is something out of a Douglas Coupland novel. Now, of course, she is depressed (tears in her eyes when she talks to you kind of depressed), trying to figure out what to do with her life, and disbelieving that things will ever get better.

Well, of course things will get better. We took turns giving her pep talks, the twentysomethings from their own recent experience, me transposing my own not-so-recent experience with the dozens--nay hundreds--of recent college graduates I have known, all of whom at some point in that first year after graduation believed they would never have a life, all of whom ended up with quite satisfactory lives. The recent college graduate listened to us and nodded, but the tears stayed in her eyes, and you could tell she didn't quite believe us.

It made me think about how we see our own lives as individual, our own crises as insurmountable, when so often it's all just developmental. And it made me think about how much easier it is to see someone else's life clearly than it is to cast a clear eye upon one's own.