I know someone who turned thirty-two recently. It’s a pretty uneventful number as far as ages go, but it felt like a significant one for me when I was growing up. I’d done the math early on to realize that when the year 2000 came along and we’d be living in the science fiction world of the future (or at least what I speculated that would be back in the 1970s), that would be the year I turned thirty-two. I wondered what my life would be like by then, in terms of the state of the world, what wonders the future had in store, and what the adult life I had built for myself would be like. The only real model I had to guide my speculation was my father, so I looked at his life and worked out where he had been at that age, thinking that as his son it was reasonable to guess my life wouldn’t be dramatically different. At age thirty-two, according to my best estimates, he’d been married for a few years. He had a house, two very young children, and even if he had an amazingly long commute to get to it, he had a job that let him take care of his family. I think he even had a dog or three.
When I turned thirty-two the story was quite different. I had the job, I had the house, and I had the ultimate dog. But some of those other relatively humble milestones had evaded me. So it got me wondering: Was I contrasting my life against a standard I’d set before I had any right to reasonably know better? Was I putting together a life based on things that made me happy and fulfilled, or was I following the path of least resistance? Were my actions outweighing my inaction, or was it the other way around? As the wise poet Neil Peart once wrote, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” How many of my choices were made because I let the inertia of life choose for me? Catching up to the present day means age thirty-two was some time ago. How much of who I am now at forty-five is the person I’ve always assumed I’d become?
I promise all of this reflection isn’t coming from an unhappy or depressed place, and has nothing to do with getting older. I just think birthdays are good natural times to reflect, and forty-five will be one birthday that I remember fondly for several reasons. I don’t mind getting older at all. As I’m reminded now with each birthday, every year I turn older is a year my sister won’t get to experience. But that also begs the question: What am I choosing to do with these bonus years that she’ll never see? Am I using the time I’ve been given to become the person I want to be? And if I examine things and discover that in some respects the answer is no, what needs to be different? What would be missing? And exactly when would I plan on doing something about it?
I feel I’m in a pretty unique position to think about this, mainly because the life I lead gives me more time than most people my age for self-indulgent pondering. After all, I don’t have a family to take care of. When my friends and acquaintances update about their lives on Facebook, it usually revolves around things they do with their spouses and children, either showing extensive albums about landmark events or just sharing everyday snapshots meant to illustrate their happiness. Are they happier than I am because of that family element in their lives, or is it just a different type of happiness that I wonder about in a grass-is-always-greener kind of way? That all seems like the kind of life I should be immersed in at this age even though it got past me somehow. But how much of that would I really want?
And if I feel that at my rapidly advancing middle-age I’m still trying to figure out a lot of things, then how does that loosely-defined sense of self compare to what others see? Where exactly do I stand with my friends? Is there a proportional balance there or do I need them more than they need me? Or is it possible they need me more than I recognize? Do they see the curiosity I carry with me or would I be surprised to learn what they perceive? Is the life I’ve made what I’ve been steering toward without realizing I was doing it or has it all been accidental?
All kind of heavy stuff, I know. Even if there are points I’d never bring up on “Summer Vacation,” it can’t be said that I won’t shy away from letting others see the process. So now if you ever hear me saying something about how I’m “reflecting on things,” maybe you have a glimpse into just how absurdly deep that can go. I doubt anyone could force their way through reading all of this blah blah blah and come away from it thinking it’s any more ridiculous than I do myself. But the thing of it is, I also think it’s healthy. Leading an examined life doesn’t necessarily give me the answers I’m looking for, but it does help sort through the questions and narrow them down to the ones that matter.
So now another year of life is beginning and with it a whole world of possibility is about to open up, much of which is probably completely unknown to me right now. There’s really nothing I can do about it at this point except think about the roads ahead, decide which one I’d like to try and follow for a while, then start moving forward to see what’s around the bend. Who knows what the future holds.
