Turning Sixty

I recently turned sixty. Six decades of opportunity and choices. Have I made the right ones? Have I taken advantage of everything that came my way or was made available? Have I accomplished any of my dreams and do I still have time to make real those greatest desires? I’m sure everyone my age begins to questions things in their life and wonder those thoughts. But, has the door shut or is it still slightly ajar? I love where I am, but not necessarily everything about myself. I mutter under my breath to myself often of my defeats.

First is health… I feel I have really made some big mistakes here. At times in my life, my athleticism was a huge part of who I was. I was able to get into shape easily without much thought other than to excel at whatever I was playing at the time. I ran effortlessly, breathed deeply, and never worried that I might be pushing myself harder than I should. I knew to gradually increase my activity, getting to the point that I was in top shape. My problem is that I should have just maintained this all my life instead of rubber banding my way to sixty. I smoked too much, drank too much, ate horribly and this was when I was in shape. My weight has always been an issue and at this point in my life seems daunting to get back to someplace of feeling comfortable with myself. I know I have it in me to get healthy again, but more importantly I just want to feel mentally good about myself. I have the most supportive person in the world at my side, but she fights her own demons and it seems we commiserate with each other more than truly looking out for each other. I know that isn’t a fair statement, but when I think about what I could do to help her more, I have fallen short of giving her my best effort. Health is also the scariest thing in my life right now. With continual worry about my lungs from thirty years of smoking, I fear not being able to breath. I recently was on a hike in Tahoe and climbed a hill and thought I was never going to regain oxygen capacity. I actually recovered pretty fast, but none the less, it scared me and I know I need to do something. Eat better, exercise more, and feed my health wisely with conscientiously supporting Jen better in the process. I will have the difficult discussion with the doctor, when I get back from the vacation I’m on, about issues that are bothering me and do something about it. My biggest problem is not doing what I say, but staying with what I know is best.

Second is mind… Most of my life I have thought about retirement and made a plan early on in life that it was my most important goal to attain at a relative early age. I retired at fifty-seven. Most people look at that and think man, I wish I could do that. I rarely have any words of wisdom for them, because the words should have come in their twenties or at least in their thirties. It is somewhat uncomfortable when people look at you with disdain for your accomplishment. I feel they think I was born with the silver spoon, but if they knew anything, they would know this is the farthest thing from the truth. I come from a long line of solid working stock that no matter what they were doing, from being a janitor or bus driver to being a nationally known electronic technician, they all were just trying to be the best they could be. At no time have any tried to be the best there is, but we have always strived to be the best we can be. That is probably the difference in those that become super wealthy, in that their desire was to accomplish what no one else had. For me, being my best came with being pretty good amongst my peers. The other part of my retirement plan at an earlier age was to give myself time to pursue something that I could be successful at on my own, totally dependent on myself in moving forward to creating something worthy of being regarded as an achievement. My problem is I had an avenue laid out for me in my previous career and it was easy to follow, gain speed through, and rise to a level of achievement worthy of some recognition. Now I want to create my own path to success and I struggle to decide what that looks like, much less being able to follow it. I feel it is just around the corner and I’m conscientiously on the lookout for it. I just worry I will miss it and my golden moment will pass.

Third is passion… Most of my life I have had passion for things in my life. This came with some criticism from others as a desire to be better than them at something. I assure you it wasn’t, it was just my passion to know and share what I discovered along the way. Examples of this would be smoking meat, writing testing code, building gardening beds, and investing. I would find things I could become passionate about and soaked up everything I could find about it, then I would put into practice what I learned. My sharing was also a passion and to have others know what I learned helped to create my circle of like-minded people. What happened though, was me alienating them as their passion was brought into question by putting holes in the circle and eventually collapsing not only the circle, but my drive as well. I used to think that I might like to teach when I retired, but it is hard for me to share something with someone that is just checking off a box to graduation. I also feel my lack of a college degree has challenged myself to believe others would take me seriously if my credentials seemingly wouldn’t hold up to them. I know this isn’t true, but is enough of a thought that I lost my passion to teach. I wanted to create a business that eventually would incorporate my kids into to taking it over and making it bigger than I ever could. But they have grown and found their own passions or are in pursuit of them and I am pretty sure that path doesn’t look at doing what Dad does and making it better. I have grandkids, so the dream isn’t completely fizzled, but it is fading. I do love writing and recently I had an idea about a novel series I would like to write. It would look a lot like work and I would have to dedicate hours each day to make it succeed. It has been a passion most of my life to write, from the poetry in my early twenties to a biography almost completed to leave for my family to understand who I was and what I thought of them and my life. My legacy is important to me, but I don’t exactly know why. Maybe it is a desire to not be forgotten. But writing with imagination is what I dream about and is what I really want to complete.

Last is Love… I love on many levels. I worry I haven’t shown my love enough and with events in my life, it naturally draws question to whether I gave it my all. I know that we aren’t always in charge of everything in our lives, but I do feel we are accountable for everything in our life. I think many of us confuse desire and need with love. My thought about love is that it comes from within and has no real explanation other than to say someone means more to you than yourself. Probably not a recipe for mental health, but I can say without question that if it came down to my survival or a kid or grandkid, my choice is easy…it is them. Physically, love can be very important, and I don’t necessarily mean sex. My ability to show someone I care about them is important and also one of the hardest things for me.  There isn’t a person I would want to share everything in my life with more than Jen. But I unfairly know I don’t show it in ways she needs to feel it. I have my moments and it is something I want to work on for the rest of my life, because I want her to know how special she is to me. I decided a long time ago, following my divorce, that I wanted to make sure my kids, wife, and anyone else in my life, that I would say I loved them whenever I could. I felt like having lost someone that did mean something to me, that I didn’t always tell them how much they meant. I vowed to never do that again. If I get into an argument with Jen, the first thing I do in reconciling is to tell her I love her. The last thing I say to someone is that I love them. Showing that love is equally important and it is what I need to make sure I work to better show that appreciation and love.

I turned sixty and I want sixty more, ok I would take thirty and be ecstatic. But I need to work on my health, love, passion, and my mind to make the next sixty exceed the first sixty. I’ve never been good with goals, but I have been more successful with commitments, so that is what I’m doing. I commit to the promise of fueling what I need most and in turn make myself a better person inspired by myself.