Fractile Aging

That's a great time for that to happen in one's life. Just having to wait one day for something seems like a lifetime. One of the longest waits' I would have each year would be for school to be over. Like the lyrics in the song, "it seemed like summer would never come". The time spent in school was like a prison term. I can remember thinking that once I graduated from high school, that that would be enough. I couldn't imagine spending another four years attending school. Life had to be more than just going back and forth to school.

Two major events in growing up stand out as exceptionally long drawn out waiting periods in my life. The time it took for me to become a licensed driver and the wait for my first sexual experience seemed unbearable. I started borrowing' the family car early in my teens. Luckily for me and my friends who were engaged in the same ritual, we never got caught. The last two months before my seventeenth birthday were like an eternity. I took drivers education to get that coveted senior license one year earlier than normal and can remember thinking that hte course would never end.

Need I spend much time relating the wait for the first sexual encounter. It seemed like all the older guys were talking about it' as if they were experiencing sex daily. When would it be my turn and who would she be? I think I started thinking of it when I was around twelve(12). I certainly was as guilty as the next kid on the block in allowing the others to think that it' had occurred already. All the anticipation caused me to be equally fearful and excited at the same time. It was a little easier to anticipate the driving experience than the sexual one. I couldn't ask about the sexual experience as comfortably as I could about driving. I didn't want anyone to think I didn't know. I think that Carly Simon summed a lot of the feeling up in her song, "Anticipation".

A few years ago, while discussing the experience of waiting for things in one's life with my son, he made it all understandable to me. He said, matter of factly, "Sure Dad, it's the theory of Fractile Aging at work." When a person is 4 years old and they are anticipating their starting school, they have a year to wait. That year is one quarter, 25% of their total life so far on this planet. No wonder it seems so long. When I am thirteen and can't wait for my drivers license, I am going to have to wait four(4) years which seems like an eternity and in fact is close to 25% of my life.

Today, when I think of being in school for four(4) years, it seems like a short period of time. Sure, from my vantage point it is a small fraction of my life. It always seemed like winters lasted forever. This winter will be over in a few days and though it was a horrible one in these parts, it seems like Thanksgiving was just last week. Oh yeah, now I know why my parents and grandparents would always tell me not to wish my life away when I would complain of having to wait too long for something I was looking forward to.

"Everything comes to those who wait" was often heard in my home. If I am 50 years old and I have to wait 6 months for something, I am only waiting the equivilant of 1% of my total lifetime. Not a problem. As I get older I find myself delaying gratification so that time doesn't seem to go too fast. Nobody ever helped me understand what they meant when I was told not to push for things to happen too soon. Noone explained Fractile Aging". How Come?