The Old Guard

There was a retirement party at my school this morning. Two people on our staff are leaving when the school year ends in another week. I've had good working and personal relationships with both of them that go back well over a decade each, and for several reasons I'm sorry to see them leave. As would be the case with most retirement parties, a lot of faces from the past showed up to help celebrate. Some of those visitors were people I hadn't seen in months, if not years. It was good to see so many familiar faces, and I'm glad I had a chance to catch up with how they are and what they're doing, whether they had retired themselves or had just moved on to different things.

I noticed something about the dynamics of the room I thought was interesting: Not unexpectedly, the tables were incredibly segregated between the newer and/or younger members of the current school staff and the people coming back just for the party. Those returning were there to acknowledge the retirement of two people they had known for so long and shared so many experiences with, and they showed a real joy about being back together. For much of the younger crowd though, who are all so far from the concept of retirement, it seemed more of a general celebration with an underlying theme. They shared their genuine best wishes with the retirees, but they spent most of the time talking and eating with each other while these other people they only peripherally knew at best mingled and caught up.

It felt odd at first to notice that, because I generally feel that even though I'm now one of the staff members with the most seniority in a school that is undeniably skewing younger than it has in decades (and remarkably so), I still like to think I'm active in what happens in the building. And there are only a handful of people who'd fit into that same category I do, the people who have been around long enough to have shared history with those returning visitors and each other, and who are also still (hopefully) seen as vital and contributing members of the current staff.

I can remember ten, fifteen, twenty years back when events like this took place in my younger days, and the veterans of that time would get back together to relive a part of their friendships they didn't have anymore. In those moments I tended to seek out and bond more with the people closer to my age and experience (not that there were many of us back then). But now I'm one of the people that has a foot in both camps, and it leaves me feeling somewhat displaced as I try to picture where I fit in with all of these dynamics. Does my seniority earn me any credibility with people, or is it a filter they use to placate me and write me off? Am I still seen as playing catch-up with the generation ahead of me since I don't have pictures of grandchildren to share or month-long winter vacations to talk about, or am I being slowly disregarded out to pasture because I pull away from the loudly-cackling, offensive-joke-telling end of the happy hour table? I honestly don't know. And even though I decided to blog about it tonight, I'm not sure I'm that concerned about where people see me inside of that dynamic. I suppose it's been my experience that people will see what they see from whatever perspective they bring, and will either accept or not accept people or things or ideas based on that. There's little any of us can actively do to change that, other than present what we hope to be the best versions of ourselves and move forward with whatever weight that carries.

If I really do have a foot anchored in both camps as much as I'd like to think I do, it still comes down to what I do with whatever situations that presents. I guess that's part of the reason why this chunk of life is called "middle age."