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Against Tide

Meeting relatives for Thanksgiving after a pandemic hiatus was a bitter-sweet experience. The relationships are a bit frayed, everyone is worn out and trying to be brave and hopeful, kids are grown-up and have turned out to be way different than anyone would have expected. Lot of folks are talking about quitting their jobs - young and old alike. The conversations were not as free flowing in years past - no one was sure until the last minute if we were going to gather but we did. The hugs spoke of desperation for human touch that was missed for so long. Some of the kids in their 20s spoke of college being an escape from the world but how the dating life was quite desolate. 

One of the kid's is going to work in NYC and will be living with a few others she went to school with which intersects with the folks she will also be working with. She is ready for work-life harmony with 12 hour work days and turning home to those same people. My thoughts turned to some other kids I know who want to forge some unique path where they don't flow through the pipeline to end up in this place at the end of college. Wanting to take a detour puts them in a lonely place where the resources of comfort and support are lacking. So they start out in the world swimming against the tide and everything appears harder and scarier as a result. And in times of deep uncertainty as these are, the penalty for such upstream swimming can be even harsher. I found myself rooting for those kids I know and others like them that are out there and I don't know. 

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