As I reflect upon a decade of life, I feel like it should involve large-scale changes or shifts; but, as I think back to 2010, I am mostly struck by how much of my life is precisely the same now as it was ten years ago. I have the same job; I live in the same house; I drive the same cars; my closest relatives are still alive. And this sameness is perhaps itself the most significant indicator of what the decade has meant for me. It’s my first fully “adult” decade. After all, only an adult can do the same thing for ten years. Even so, there are more achievements that come from being a bit old, from being an adult, than this everlasting sameness. Take, for example, the following ten stamps I have earned this decade on my Adult Card.
The first stamps are in some ways the most obvious, but they can also be the most difficult to earn. They are Stamps of Acceptance.
STAMPS OF ACCEPTANCE
I knew I was getting old when I looked at some of my youthful dreams and aspirations, saw they were in reach, and let them pass me by. As a young man I thought an ideal life was lived in a small town, preferably in the woods. I knew I’d need a pickup truck, which I’d probably use to carry sports equipment to the practices where I was the coach. I looked forward to traveling. And while these were all within my reach this decade, I did not grasp for them. I plan to live in a suburban-sized city for the duration, I am foregoing the pickup in favor of begging favors from friends who do own them, and I’d rather have a job I enjoy than the money I need to travel. And coaching? I like being home for dinner and didn’t even sign my kids up for little league. Good-bye, silly dreams. I’ve got better ones now.
In teaching it is easy to lose track of the years because there really isn’t a path for career advancement. The job you begin is the job you retire from. So I was surprised this decade to learn that my peers in other careers were no longer breaking into their fields but taking them over. My classmates had become managers, deans and published authors. And the athletes who graduated from high school in my time are the retired stars of the last generation—Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, Peyton Manning—or the geriatrics of the current one—Tom Brady, Vince Carter. That category has always mattered to me, as I loved to realize that while I was catching for Charlie and Greg, somewhere in the country someone just like me was catching for a freshman named C.C. Sabathia.
When I was in college and afterward, no job felt like a trap, because I knew I could always quit and get another one. Even if it involved a whole bunch of training—like teaching—I knew there would be a way to start fresh in a new career. But as this decade has progressed, I’ve realized that’s a perspective I no longer hold. Now, with a heap of retirement built up and a salary that has taken more than a decade to reach, it makes more sense to keep a job that isn’t ideal than to try again. So while a new career isn’t impossible, it’s not even close to practical.
Thus the badges of acceptance. As I walk this journey, I cannot return, and certain options are no longer options. But closely related to accepting these more limited options is another category of signs—Stamps of Deterioration.
STAMPS OF DETERIORATION
My son found a soccer ball at the playground last week. He asked me to kick it to him, so I backed up and launched it. I was rather surprised at how soon my projectile bounced, and after a moment of reflection—had I misaligned my foot and shanked it? No, I don’t think so—I was grateful it at least rolled the rest of the way to him. Gone are the days when I would kick a ball so far the other kids would stop running and watch it fly. Gone is the speed that ran an impressive mile. Now it’s time to be happy I can run a mile, that I can kick a ball without pulling something.
I admit the idea of my wife getting pregnant is scary. But while that idea used to be scary because I didn’t know what raising a child entailed, now it is scary because I do know what raising a child entails. And I’m too tired not to be frightened. Staying up all night with a fussy baby was simply a different experience at 37 than it was at 27. At 47, I’ll tremble at the thought.
Speaking of children, it is interesting to look at baby pictures of my oldest kids and see me holding them. My primary thought is, “Wow! I look young!” It’s like my children were raised by a child. I know I have some grey hair now, but I think the primary difference is something else, the skin, perhaps? I’m not going to investigate too closely, but even a passing glance is sufficient for judgment. I’m getting old.
But this all sounds defeatist, as if I’m sad that I’m getting old. The reality is I am rather enjoying being an adult, and one reason is this last category: Stamps of Acquired Skills
STAMPS OF ACQUIRED SKILLS
Naomi Shihab Nye begins her poem “Tongue Tied” with a fun fact. I don’t know if it’s true.
Someone just told me our tastebuds die
as we grow older.
They die one-by-one, or in groups.
A child has whole galaxies.
We’re lucky by now to retain a few.
Maybe this is why I am able to eat spicy food and foods I’d never have touched when I was younger. Onions were anathema to the 16-year-old me; now they’re essential. It’s hard to imagine the boy who thought Italian food was ethnic would appreciate Indian food—but if it took dying taste buds to grow my appreciation of curry and cayenne, so be it.
Last week I put our Christmas tree in its stand in less than ten minutes. Ten minutes! I spent the previous decade descending into despair each December 1, as I wrestled tree after tree into almost upright positions. Advent is supposed to mean I’m meditating on the approach of incarnation, of a savior, but mostly I thought, “Is it leaning? I think it might be leaning.” It was a family rule that the tree did not go up until all children were safely locked away in naptime, safe from irritating my frustration. But experience is a teacher, and the only way to gain it is to do things again and again. With another decade behind me, I think I can unlock the children from their naps now. Which I believe my teenagers will appreciate.
I don’t know that I can call this an acquired skill, but mentioning my frustration over basic household tasks reminds me of A Christmas Story, a movie that has always given me pleasure from unsurprising places—the kids’ experiences reminded me of my own, the dad was at times eerily similar to mine. But now it’s not my dad I’m thinking of when I watch that father. It’s me. Not that I read the newspaper at the dinner table, but I’m much more like the sleepy dad on Christmas morn than the eager children.
Some kids grow up handy. They learn to hang drywall and lay concrete before they learn that Pythagoras had a theorem. I was not one of those kids, but my house has never cared. So I have bumbled along every time something goes wrong. This summer, a perfect storm of incidents led to my reframing a couple rooms in my basement. For one, I had to dismantle a wall I’d repaired 10 years ago. When I cut the drywall away I remarked to my daughter, who was standing nearby, “What idiot put in this bottom plate? It’s not treated!” She knew well the answer: I did. But that was then. Now, I even enjoyed adding a closet in my daughter’s bedroom.
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All things considered, I’m not ashamed of the ten new stamps on my Adult Card. They mean I’ve reached a new milestone, one even worth celebrating. I’m thinking about marking the occasion this New Year’s Eve in a particularly fitting way—by going to bed at 10:00.