Before I talk about that, I want to talk for a moment about my process in writing, particularly the unusual steps for this post.
Most of the time, when I’m contemplating something more substantive/personal than a book review, I think about the topic for a while, composing some of it in my head, and then, eventually, I sit down to write it straight through. While I edit as I go, when I’m done, I frequently go back to the beginning and edit some more. Occasionally, I restructure it quite a bit. Sometimes the whole point of writing it was to figure out what I thought in the first place, I didn’t know the ending until I got there, so then I go back and streamline the prose to that objective. That doesn’t mean I’m ever brief, more just that I often “clean up the digressions”. If I’m writing late at night, and I’m tired, sometimes I just wrap it up and press publish. Other times I leave it until the next day. Rarely do I leave it sit for any length of time before finishing it, unless I’m perhaps rewriting something or potentially deciding that it was too long and breaking it into multiple posts.
For this post, I had no idea where I was going. I was trying to describe a certain degree of indecision, the malaise of spirit or inertia of mind and body that I experienced over the last year or so. A lack of motivation. None of the things on my to-do list seemed enticing or more of a priority than the rest. Heck, I couldn’t even decide on what this post should be titled:
- PolyWogg 2024?
- The new me?
- The Id in Mid?
- Who I was, who I am, who I want to be?
- Self-indulgent claptrap, episode 922?
I frequently write about goals and creating a new energy / initiative. But this was different. A different order of magnitude, perhaps.
I had written the post last weekend, and yet left it sitting unpublished all week. I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to say.
I wrote a bit more later in the week, saved it, went upstairs, saw Andrea and Jacob, and had an epiphany. It was indeed a different order of magnitude. I knew what was constraining me.
More than a phase
Backing up a bit, the feeling of “something” had been going on for about 8-10 months. Looking back, it corresponds to when I started actively planning for my retirement (I only realized that tonight while writing, by the way, as it might have been a good clue!). I simply knew that whatever it was, it was bigger than normal. Something more fundamental, almost primal perhaps.
When stuff like this happens, I often go back to the core “me” and review my foundations. See if anything resonates, like a crumbling cornerstone or something. Something that could be making me uncertain, causing the uncertainty or a mental disconnect between the private “me” and the public “me”. Or with the other “me” versions inside.
To aid my mental review, I like to think of my life up until now in three big sections.
My initial life up to age 29 was as a follower (0-13), mostly of my brother; some autonomy in high school (14-19) as I started to figure out the academic side of my life; intimacy in physical, emotional, intellectual sense of choosing friends and a girlfriend (20-23); individuality (24-25) out West deciding about life in government; and finally identity at Foreign Affairs, making new friends, etc. (26-28).
Then there was the 5 years where I field-stripped my psyche, my tadpole status. Recognizing that a lot of stuff that had been built into that first section of life was in fact built by other people. Stuff I often “absorbed” unconsciously, even though it really wasn’t me and not at all how I wanted to live my life. There were directions I would have taken then that I look at now and think, “WTF? How was that even an IDEA let alone a possible path? I would have hated that life.”. I had been existing, not flourishing previously, and it took me from age 29-34 to really understand myself.
The third section is comprised of the extended elements after that which now comprise most of my current life. I wanted a long career with government, wanted to rise to the level of management, have a decent job and income, get married, have kids, establish and maintain relationships with family and friends on terms I was comfortable with, own a decent house without it being insane. Be able to take interesting trips, if not worldwide excursions. Call it age 35-56 aka now.
As I walked upstairs, thinking of my current life, wondering what was “wrong” with it that was bothering me, I realized as I saw Andrea and Jacob what was “wrong”. In short, nothing.
I pretty much have everything that I wanted when I was 34. I’ve achieved almost all of the success that PolyWogg envisioned when he wasn’t a tadpole anymore. Man plans while the gods laugh, but well, that man I used to be had a plan that happened.
Not necessarily as a result of my plan, of course. Andrea and I have Jacob in tow, we’re all still building a life together, twenty-two years later. In that time, a lot has happened. Some good, some bad, some easy, some really f***ing hard. Life, basically. And it is a pretty good life, if I do say so myself. Jacob and Andrea are my heart and soul.
So, what could be wrong?
Nothing or everything?
I’m 56 years old, and starting into the “final third” of my life. I had a mental model that got me to age 29 or so, and the revamped me got me to 56. I don’t know what’s next. What do you get the man who has everything? How about an existential crisis? 🙂
Last year, I set my goals for 60 things to do before I’m 60. And most of the things on the list are things I want to do. They’re valid. But they’re not inspiring me. They are not things where I declare “I’m a (blah)”. They’re not legacy items, just activities. Maybe I’m looking for what would be on my tombstone. We were joking tonight, a bit glib and sarcastic. How about “Started strong and fizzled at the end”? Or our in-house favourite when we’re playing a game of cards, for example, and out of the three of us, Andrea and Jacob are doing well and I’m basically returning the cards. Like in bowling, I’m the ball return, not the bowler. So we call each other Ball Return, although me mostly. Not in a harmful way, just mocking, but it’s a fun metaphor at times. “In the bowling game of life, would you rather be a scorekeeper, bowler, ball return, pin setter, or the guy handing out shoes with sanitizer in them?”. 🙂
Some people think of me as the HR guru, although I haven’t updated my guide in forever.
Others might say I’m an astronomer, but I haven’t used my scopes in 4 years.
Very few would say I’m a writer, although my blogging surpasses well over 2 million words. Hundreds and hundreds of posts. Thousands even. But would people describe me that way? No.
In just under three weeks, I will be THREE YEARS FROM RETIREMENT. I’m at 1100 days and change right now. And to be honest, I don’t really know what retirement looks like for me. I have some books on “Purposeful Retirement”. And I’ve been looking at what others are doing, most of which doesn’t resonate with me.
And once I decide on what I want retirement to look like, have I made the right financial, physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional investments to live the kind of life I want to enjoy in my “golden years”?
In short, I don’t know.
What’s next?
I’m not field-stripping my psyche again, no existential crisis. I know who I am, I already know what’s important to me. But the exact form or expression of that intent? I need to perhaps figure that out. And just because I achieved my big goals, that hardly means my life is perfect by any stretch of the imagination. There are things that I should be doing and are not; celebrating but not; living but not. There’s lots of room for improvement. Without that “idea” of what I want, it’s hard for me to be motivated about specific goals.
As I figure out some of my legacy, I also want to think a little about rituals. I don’t quite know how to describe that part. While lists, goals, habits, etc., are all good on their own, I have probably not spent enough time in the past on using structure in my day or week to reinforce a goal or facilitate doing it.
Perhaps a simple example would be that I want to go walking more, and not always around Ottawa. So after I retire, and Andrea is still working for a while, maybe I’ll drive her to work every Thursday or something, and then drive myself somewhere on the Quebec side to walk. The Gatineau Hills. Some parks. A waterfall trail. The ritual of driving her to work would reinforce that a) I need to get my ass up and out of the house in time to take her to work, not lollygagging around the house, and b) be up and ready to go do something. Often, others set something up for social interaction to stay in touch with people from work by joining one of the numerous breakfast groups who meet every Friday morning.
In short, rituals use the form to reinforce the function. Maybe it’s a games night, maybe it’s a movie afternoon. I don’t know yet. As I said, I haven’t given it enough thought. But I want to figure that out.
The elephant in the room is that my brother Don just died, and he wasn’t exactly in a happy place when he did. That too is part of the impetus. As is the death of a friend, Jeremy, a couple of years ago. Reminders to me to make the most of the life I lead. To not treat the last third of my life as a simple to-do list, but to actively plan for it to have meaning too.
60 things by 60 will still be part of it, sure. But not the real question. Something deeper.
A Purposeful Retirement sounds like what I want to create, particularly now that I need new “big” life goals. The challenge for me, in part, is that some of those new goals will be shared ones, not only to do but to establish, while others are likely to be more individualistic. Andrea is farther away from retirement so not quite ready for the same type of planning. Fortunately, she’s stuck with me and has to at least share her views on my goals as I come up with them.
Weird. So, the reason I was unhappy is that I already had what I wanted. So, universe…what’s next?
