Photo by Harper Malmgren at the Perot Museum
A) Childhood – I believe that God’s primary intention in our childhood is to teach us to enjoy life. We see that all the time—how good it is to share happiness with the children in our lives. There is an unparalleled joy in observing a moment of happiness shared by parent and child. Yes, I’m aware that horrors are running rampant in the lives of many children on our planet—refugees, victims of abuse, the poor—clearly this is an obfuscation of the will of God. God’s intention is to share happiness with every human on the planet. The tragedy is that if you don’t learn to enjoy life as a child, it is going to be more difficult to learn later on…but not impossible.
B) Youth – Ah, certainly the most tempestuous, and maybe the most difficult, of all my stages. This is when the ego kicks in. I am somebody and I have to make a mark on my world (or not). I watched Booksmart the other night—those two girls were definitely in the youth stage! It seems like youth has the highest highs and the lowest lows. I love and respect and frequently roll my eyes at what we call youth—that’s why I was a high school teacher.
C) Marriage and career – Yes, I know, there could be four more stages between B and C, but these are my stages, and youth lasted a long time. This stage is compacted—the two came fairly close together for me. Even if they don’t, each one requires a full-on commitment. All of a sudden, your time is not your own. And you want to succeed in both. Many of us delay one until we get the other—I didn’t go for teacher/writer until I was married and had a kid. Which brings me to…
D) Children – We all know this is the gamechanger. I won’t even go into the imposition on your time—it is lost and will it ever be recovered? But the greater transformation is on your heart. Your whole perspective changes. You can never think about your future and just “I” anymore (you could still sneak that in with your wife). And your heart tells you it doesn’t matter. God teaches us unconditional love by giving us children. How sad that we are even capable of screwing that up!
E) The empty nest – This is a very important stage—how Karen and I accepted, adjusted and settled into our new environment was a test (we passed, thank God!) of our marriage. You have been married all those years, but you are still so different in many ways. Your children, among a trillion other things, are also buffers. Of course, they’re not really gone. Many parents I know continue to have daily contact with their children for the rest of their lives. But the focus of your daily life has to change. There is a tremendous satisfaction in believing they were ready to leave and confront this world on their own. There is also a sobering but also liberating realization that the future you need to concentrate on now is your own.
F) Retirement – It makes sense they are known as the golden years. Again, an apology—I know there are millions of retired and elderly people who are living in discontentive (I made that word up, but it works) circumstances, and I wish that wasn’t so. Truth is, all the old people I know have their own take on what their circumstances are and how contented they should be with them. But if you are lucky (I am), retirement gives you back something you lost after childhood—time. And, it takes a lifetime to learn it, but time is more important than money. I sometimes tell people that these could very well be the happiest years of my life, but I can never explain why.
I go back to my first paragraph: God always takes the long view. I can read over this essay and feel a little bit like I’ve gone through The Lord of the Rings (grandiose, I know). It has been a journey and a quest. Remember that old bromide—stop and smell the roses. Wonderful advice! Pair that with the apostle Paul’s look ahead—now we see dimly but then face to face. Damn, it has been a long, strange, wonderful trip, and I am looking forward to getting there.
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