Looking on the bright side of staying young at heart

As I race - literally- across Manhattan's subways and streets to get to pick-up at the very last minute, my mind is clear and I can't help marveling.

Here I am, racing yet again. I am no longer a high school kid late to school, or a single in Berlin dashing into the cold to meet someone for beer. 

I am a well seasoned mom, with some grey hairs, a very established job. I'm someone who cleans dishes every night, looks at bathroom renovations with interest, can't fit into size 6 anything.

But I'm still running to get there. Sure, there is a new desire to stop every few blocks for breath that makes it physically clear to me that I'm also different than I once was, but - as I run through the premature darkness at 5:55 pm on a mild New York November evening- I feel like nothing has really actually honestly changed. 

And because I'm in a good mood today, I want to read that positively. I want to embrace the running-late soul that is deep inside of me and that makes the 41-year-old Rebecca so fundamentally like the 15-year-old one. 

So much around me has changed- starting with the world (the Wall, the presidents, the technology), my context (the job, the family, to some degree my convictions), and my own physical self. 

But some things have not. Likely these include my ideas. But if who-I-am is measured by what-I-think-- it's simply harder to remember to what extent i have stayed constant or changed. Or have I only changed marginally as new experiences have layered one on the other? Is there something like an ethic or an impetus or a vision that stays the same? But if I want to learn, don't I want to change, and so not be like my younger self? The level of ideas and identity is deeply complex. There's nothing intuitive about it.

But some of these most basic feelings and even more, some of those scenes I've been privy to before- I recognize them. I know in my bones what it feels like to run- and to feel for a moment late, yes, but also free in some strange but real way. Free to pass everyone else, to be one with a beautiful night, to move my body as fast as I am able. 

I'd like to capture those moments that are quintessentially me. To read a book on and on and it feels like time is stopping - it will be irresponsible in the morning, but in the middle of the night it's just quiet and endless and all-absorbing. To ride a bike and feel my small revolutions set off larger gears and pull a huge wheel across the road at my bidding. To laugh hard. To run late.

Grateful for a certain type

There is a certain type of person that I'm really attracted to.

If it is a woman- she is nice looking, smart, has a generous smile, maybe glasses, maybe just pleasant eyes. She's natural and somewhat fit without being an all-out sports enthusiast. No serious make up, no serious clothes, but a lovely real look. If she has kids, she's relaxed with them, attentive, but not helicoptering. If she doesn't, she might be more of a flirt, more fun, but never lost in that persona of pleasing others. She has a good sense of humor- part real fun, small part irony. She's compassionate and grounded, a doer and a thinker. That's who I aspire to be too.

If it's a man, he's a little gruff, a little tough, he might have an accent- Eastern European, Latino, Israeli. He's handy - he can fix things, and he's strong. He laughs generously, and there's some fundamental wisdom there- seeing life just as it is, no illusions, but no taking it for granted either. If he's a Dad, he's a really good one. He can cook and take care of a house - though it's a competency and not a passion- and he has a sweet and gentle side with kids, whom he can juggle with humor and responsibility. He is pensive and directive in good measure, tolerant and slightly impatient too.

Man or woman, he is a thinking type, reflecting on lived experience and abstracting ideas that help to radar in on reality more clearly. She is moral- not in strictly religious terms or according to outside precepts, but in the sense of being true to oneself, and trusting that "oneself" is a decent being, a social animal that prospers when others do as well. Both types are accomplished- getting things done and caring about doing meaningful things.

I've met some wonderful people who have built out this type for me. Not a few of them are Israeli or Jews imported from elsewhere, and I don't doubt that this is a character derived from those seminal experiences from childhood and through my career in the Jewish world. But some are Palestinians, Germans, Argentines, Albanians, French, Nigerians... Even Americans! When I was young I noticed that a disproportionate percentage of my friends had parents from elsewhere...

What creates the type? Is it a combination of secure upbringing and inherited loss that grounds- that creates compassion and realism together? So different from the entitlement of perfect security, and equally far from the existential fear of those who have suffered tremendously themselves.