Experience Teaches Us

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I was trading messages with one of my dearest friends the other day and he told me about a recent conversation he had with his father:

My Dad told me the other day that I call a lot these days.

"Is it because I'm getting old?" he asked.

"I said no. It's because I'm getting old."

Moving. Poignant. Self-aware. Expressing so much by saying so little.

While not directly related in its intent, it reminded me, in a way, of the famous quote by Mark Twain:

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."

It pains me to say that I grappled with this myself when I was much younger. I guess we all deal with this as we mature. As we realize that it isn't them, it's us. And so we learn.

Experience has a way of teaching us, moving us, changing us.

That's the case in all of our relationships, personal or otherwise.