Contemplation #1
Hamlet’s question was a contemplation of death. The choice to exist or not exist. One of the answers is final. The other answer is what leads to my contemplation – “What happens when you choose ‘to be’?”
In early childhood, the question starts “What do you want to be when you grow up?” For some of us a vision of becoming a “grown-up,” and all that it entails is a straight line. Career paths, and family choices, are carried in our heads as vague ambitions or firm plans. Others of us take the long and curvy “someday” path, even sometimes backtracking. In fact, there are people, like me, who spend most of their lives looking for, working for, or dreaming about what we will BE-come. Eventually.
I’ve decided that it is time for me to get off the “someday I’ll be…” merry-go-round. No, unlike Hamlet, it is not a consideration of death. It is perhaps inspired by the inevitability of death, creating a pivot point on that curvy road. Notice given to stop waiting for what I am going to be, and concentrating on what I am – more precisely, who I am.
At this moment, who and what I am is an amalgamated construction of all I have experienced up to today. Wonderful life experiences, heartbreaking trauma.
Family life, professional life, and the puzzle pieces that haven’t quite fit into the picture but are still out there on the table.
Recently, I’ve been exploring my personal strengths, learning about the idea of spending more time using and improving them, rather than trying to cure my weaknesses. For 68 years I’ve been hiking up a mountain, waiting to finally get to the top, the place where I will finally be me. I’ve forgotten to stop, turn around, and look at how far I have come. How many hills and bumps and icy streams I’ve passed – and heights I have already reached. And yes, I see the muddy butt-slide trails where things didn’t go as planned. Even more important than taking all that in, is feeling what is under my feet, embracing the place where I am at, and recognizing who, and what I am. Taking that knowledge and those personal strengths as a new path, a new map, supporting who I am. As long as I be.
To be, or not to be? The Question That Answers Itself
Contemplation #2
Twenty years ago, I chronicled blog posts leading up to my milestone 50th Birthday. At that time, I was dreaming about what I was going to “be when I grow up.” Children off to college, divorce drama quieted, and a career doing what I considered good work. Life was finally opening for me, giving me the opportunity to do “all those things” I had planned.
Who knew I would be unceremoniously perp-walked (along with the majority of the award-winning team I was part of) out of the job I thought I would have for life? Who knew that seeking a new position would become a trudge through unanswered applications, waste-of-time interviews, and real anxiety about bankruptcy and homelessness? I had never in my life not gotten a job I applied for. Then, the employment world threw water on me, and I melted like the Wicked Witch of the West. “Oh, what a world!”
I’m not going to recite the adventures of those intervening years, except to say, that my children grew up to be successful adults (and parents), I’ve been gainfully employed, (in fact I have three areas of “work” to keep me busy), and—after suspecting, and being content with a home for just me and my dog—I found the love of my life. We were committed to each other in Vegas, at the top of the Stratosphere with enthusiastic onlookers hanging over the railings of the next floor.
I’m ready to chronicle 2024 to mark a new one-year countdown to another landmark birthday. I know that I am less interested in what I want to “be” and more focused on who I “am.” I am reducing my fixation on distant success landmarks. I am not giving up on any of the work I love to do, just teaching myself to be more in the present. And if, in the present, I must backtrack, change my path, or forge through a quagmire, I will do it mindfully.
It does come as a surprise that “Are you still working?” is a constant query, by medical professionals, casual acquaintances, and every piece of medical plan solicitation, “Hurry up! Time is running out!” I know they mean the “enrollment period,” but it is a reminder that time is running out in a more final way. Of course, just as in the Wicked Witch’s hourglass timer, the sand starts pouring the day we are born, and eventually runs out. It makes Hamlet’s question answer itself.
January 1, 2024, has come and gone. April 7, 2025, is not that far away. Time to grab that broomstick or Yorick’s poor skull, because I’ll soon be contemplating “being” 70 – whether that is a milestone, stepping stone, or stumbling block!
