In less
than a month, I turn 50 years old.
I realize
at this milestone that it doesn’t take too many years to go from a young man planning
things to do in the future to realizing that there may not be many years left to
accomplish those plans. Not long ago, I might have thought that someday I would
like to do one thing or the other, but at 50, I realize that whatever my life
is going to be, I am living it now.
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I am
surprised by how short adulthood seems. When I was a kid, I thought childhood
lasted a long time. I can remember the individual years of my youth, and I can
remember specific things that happened each year to me and in pop culture:
movies, television shows, music. Just to pick a year, for example, like 1983: eighth
grade spring, ninth grade fall (I can remember all the teachers, classes, and
friends), Pyromania, Return of the Jedi, etc.
Once I
began to work, the years and the cultural events kind of meld together. Instead
of each year and those year’s events being unique and specific, now the years
kind of run together in my memory. In the last 15–20 years specifically, I don’t
have a firm idea when songs, movies, or television shows came out. Part of that
comes from being married and having kids, part of that is that as I mature, I
become less interested in popular culture.
Another
thing that makes adulthood seem short is that I didn’t really begin my
adulthood until I was 28 years old. That is the first time I had a full-time,
salaried job, so I had an extended pre-adulthood compared to generations that
preceded me. I was married at 33, but if I was married at 21 and was working
full-time immediately after college graduation, maybe adulthood would feel
longer.
At 50, I
also begin to realize that I am limited in opportunities to do the things I
have thought that I would do “some day”: to travel to the European mainland, to
improve my golf game, to read books, increase my level of guitar playing, and to
do the little projects I have set for myself. I am now at the age of cancer,
heart attacks, and other medical issues. I may have less time than I even
imagine. But even if I were to live to the age when my father passed away, that
gives me 36 years left on this earth.
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We often
hear of a person’s life compared to the months during a calendar year. Upon
reaching the age of 50, Frank Sinatra released an album called September of My Years. In looking at the
12-month calendar, I break down the months and ages of life this way:
January: 0–2
years (infancy and toddlerhood)
February: 3–7
years (early elementary)
March: 8–12
years (elementary)
April:
13–18 years (teenager)
May: 19–25
years (college-aged)
June: 25–35
years (young adult)
July: 35–45
years (young middle-aged)
August: 45–55
years (middle middle-aged)
September:
55–65 years (old middle-aged)
October:
65–75 years (young elderly)
November:
75–85 years (middle elderly)
December:
85–95 and beyond years (old elderly)
By this
accounting, I am in the August of my life. I no longer can pretend I am young
or that most of my life is ahead of me. This knowledge can lead to stasis,
sadness, or panic, but it can also lead to clarity about things that are
important and things that should take priority.
This is the
age of no longer gathering and planting, but bringing ideas to fruition.
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This past
fall, I attended my first silent retreat at a local Jesuit retreat house. In
the house I stayed at, there was a quote by St. Ignatius on the wall that made
think.
“Therefore,
we must make ourselves
indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed by free choice
and are not under any prohibition. Consequently, as far as we are
concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty,
honor to dishonor, a long life to a short.”
This quote
is from Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercise #23, and it is referred to as Holy
Indifference. I have been thinking about this since the silent retreat, and I
think it holds a lot of insight for a person of faith in today’s culture.
With the
retreat of Christianity in today’s western culture, we have a chance to be
witnesses to Christ in a way that is maybe less easy than it was in the recent
past in the United States. As a Catholic, I need to find the courage to live my
faith without apology.
