As many of you may (or may have not) have noticed, I’ve taken an extended break from posting my weekly blogs this summer. In exchange for my absence, I’ve spent my free time focusing on enjoying the summer, spending time outside and with those I hold near and dear to my heart. Like our lives, our summers are so limited, and it’s important to recognize when we need to take a break from things to spend quality time doing things you love with people you care about. I try to respond to texts in a timely manner and fulfil my promise to write a weekly blog, but at times it can be challenging and I appreciate those who have been patient with me by understanding that this isn’t something about them but rather something I need to do for myself in order to stay happy and healthy. This reflection and quality time spent has inspired today’s blog topic.
Recently I’ve spent some time with a family member who is significantly younger than I am. Their birthday just passed and we spent some time away creating special memories. As much as I love this person’s company, the enjoyment is limited by the age difference, differences in life experience and lack of common interests. I am a role model for this individual at their particular age group and, although this may change overtime as they become an adult, we will never fill the role in each other’s lives on a “friendship” level where I can truly and authentically be myself with them.
We all have different relationships that may or may not fill specific needs in our lives. One person may fulfill more needs than others. For example, the majority of people who see me professionally love their partners and have all or most of their emotional needs met but are lacking certain things in the relationship, such as physical touch or the ability to share certain fantasies without the fear of being shamed. In contrast to having relationships in our lives where we focus on having our needs met, I think it is important to recognize when your needs are not the priority and rather your role as an older role model to humans, whose brains are not yet fully developed, takes precedence. But what about the age differences between adults?
One thing I hear in my professional life commonly is people feel apprehensive or insecure about receiving a massage due to the age difference (person seeking out the massage are older than I am). My response is simple: we are both adults with fully developed brains and the ability to consent to enter into a professional contract with terms and conditions we both feel comfortable accepting. There’s no question that we are more likely to feel more connected to a person who is closer to our age group based on shared experiences in the world, life stages, energy levels and common interests, like certain music genres or bands that were popular for a particular generation. This isn’t to say that we are not going to connect in any other way or that this will always be the case but we can’t deny that we are more likely to feel a level of connectivity with those who share more commonalities with ourselves. However, those seeking out my massage service are not looking for a romantic relationship but rather the sensual experience that I provide. Why am I talking about this?
The Party Room
As most of you can relate, we face mortality in our every lives, whether it’s regarding our own or those we love. We sometimes tend to attach a negative connotation to death and therefore avoid thinking about it to prevent the pain of losing people. I’ve always been particularly interested in the unknown of the afterlife and take any and all anecdotal evidence of one’s perception of death (and near death experiences) as truth. The more we familiarize ourselves with the idea of the transition into the end of life cycles, the more comfort we may find in the process for ourselves and others.
I watched a quick video today on social media, created by a nurse, which talked about the concept of the party room. The essential idea behind this was that there are two party rooms that exist: the party room in the living life and the party room in the afterlife. She says that we are all in the living party room when we are born, moving through various life stages from baby to child into adulthood. We are surrounded by people in this party room who are our friends, family and everyone else we interact with in our personal lives. As we grow older, particularly close to our 60s and 70s, she said people notice there’s more people missing from this party room. As you grow even older, you start to feel like you’re missing out on the party in the afterlife. She mentions that people get excited to join all the people they’ve lost in the afterlife, despite being surrounded by their kids, grandkids etc. who will eventually join you in the afterlife.
One thing that she didn’t say, and some thing that I’ve noticed when she talked about the new people that have joined the party room, is the age difference between those who joined the living party room after this individual. I think people are ready to join the afterlife party room because they may not share as much commonalties with the newly joined members due to the age difference. Of course we can’t deny there are other factors, such as pain levels, memory, etc. that contribute to this desire to move into the afterlife but I can only imagine how lonely things may be when you have lost all of your older relatives that you’ve looked up to and your peers that you leaned on for support. Freedom from this emotional pain is such a beautiful gift to be given for those suffering from this inconceivable loneliness. It brings me comfort knowing that people like who I care about (and myself as well) can be set free from the emotional and psychological pain we may endure as we move into the later stages of our lives.
Here is the quick video that I've referred to in this blog if you’re interested:
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