Interview With Granny

   For some reason talking about love never gets old to me. I think it's the idea that everyone no matter the race, age, sex, religion has looked for love at some point. It's kind of like the one thing that ties us all together. In my opinion love has changed from what it was fifty years ago to what it is today. Which led me to my interview with Granny. Both of my biological grandmothers passed but God blessed me with a new grandmother in Mrs. Annie or Granny Annie as I affectionately call her.
   Granny Annie is now 72 years young and acts as if she's still 21. She's been married to Grand Pa Joe for 49 years. Granny Annie grew up in Virginia before moving to Michigan at the age of 20 which is where she met Grand Pa Joe. I always find it to be intriguing how so many older couples can stay together for 40 and 50 years so I decided to interview Granny Annie on love. When I asked her to tell me what she felt love was she smiled and said "a drug, that you can't get enough of". She went on to tell me how the definition of love changes with the times. Each generation has a different view on it, what it means, and how much they'll put up with to keep it once they've found it. Then I went on to explain to her some of my struggles I have had with love and asked her if she could give me any advice. She listened carefully and said "you know the biggest difference between you and me is patience. I come from a time where we didn't rush things, we weren't perfect but we understood there's no time limit on getting what you want". I found that interesting because there has been many reports on how short my generations attention span is due to all of this new technology and things of that nature we want everything immediately, we have no patience.
   We began to talk about her and Grand Pa Joe and how they went through rough times just like any other relationship but they forgave each other and recognized that the connection they had was worth going through a struggle here and there. Then I asked if one of those struggles was infidelity and a little surprised she said "Um for him I'm sure he did but he made it hard for me to find out and for me I couldn't do that, us girls weren't like that back in the day. We're not like those girls on those rap videos now". When she spoke about this she kind of referred to Grand Pa Joe as if it was okay if he had cheated, in a "oh he's just being a man" kind of way. This made me think about the double standard that exist in society that's discussed in our "Sex, Power, and Intimacy" section. Where it's okay for men to be promiscuous and its frowned upon if a women is. I asked her if she felt this was okay for there to be a double standard and she said "It's the way the world is or at least the world I grew up in". I don't think many females of my generation would view it in the same light. It was a different time when they were growing up, men had all the power. Women couldn't even vote and weren't smiled upon to vote. Being a woman in the 1930s meant being a wife and taking care of home and the children. Through the years things have changed, women have gained more rights and freedoms. I feel like today women express their sexual desires just as much as men and don't feel bad about doing so. In the end me and Granny Annie had a great talk and I learned a lot. Some of it I can apply to my life but because of the change of times some of it I can't.