In a recent blog about how fond I am of my readers I wrote about enjoying the back-and-forth that has developed between me and some very special people who I'm now lucky enough to know because of my blogging here.

One I feel very close to now, after months of getting-to-know-you gradual unwrapping of layers of comments and emails, is a woman I will, for the sake of this post, call T.

T often leaves very thoughtful and insightful comments on the blogs and adds much to the dialog that is the goal of AdoptionBlogs.com. She is generous and warm, and has a sense of humor I often get a kick out of, and she's smart.

When I wrote about a tough time in my life that had me thanking my mom for the support she gave at the time, T chimed in, and when our conversation moved to emails, she told a story that struck me as something we might all benefit from hearing. With her gracious permission, I'll share it with you now.

Explaining that the best years of her life were when she was 32-33-ish, she dropped in hints about rough patches that presented themselves at other times, and how when she was younger, in her twenties, she had assumed that she was supposed to be happy. Because she wasn't, she felt alone and somehow out of kilter with the picture she had of what being young and alive was supposed to feel like.

Bemoaning what she saw as the fact that she was the only miserable 20-something in the world, she complained to an older woman she worked with, a 55-year-old Director of Nursing.

That woman told T something she carries ... and repeats ... to this day, that most people don't really start enjoying life until in their thirties and that life actually gets comparatively better with every passing decade, and she added that she was happier at 55 than she'd ever been.

T took her words to heart, and concluded that she herself had, apparently, been misinformed ... that happiness was not, "the exclusive property, or even the norm, of the young".

When I read this, my immediate question was: Did hearing this give you hope, or did it just seem a frustrating dodge?

Her answer so impressed me.

Oh, it absoloutely gave me hope. Ro was obviously mature and quite content with her life. She was a good woman, kind and sharing, so I knew she wasn't just throwing a platitude out there.

It was VERY comforting to me and, like many powerful messages, it has an element of self-fulfilling prophecy, as I immediately began to relax about "missing" my happy time.

In turn, the lessening of tension about "wasting" time meant I was able to look more long term and make some decisions about what paths in life would best "set me up" for the happiness that was to come.

Not that you can just "create" happiness if you try hard enough. More like I was able to see opportunities a little more clearly for their long term value, not just the "what can you do for me NOW" aspect. Sort of like the choices some people make at the end of high school to put off paychecks and "adult" perks to go to college, considering that the impact on their life overall will be well-worth the sacrifice initially.

Also, this was, mmm, about 15 or so years ago and I think that, if Ro would even remember me, she would be SHOCKED to realize that she had what boiled down to a life-changing effect on me with just a sincere but very "in the moment" offering of comfort and perspective.

Thanks for sharing, T! I can see this coming in handy for many of us as our kids grow and we age.