Life Passages
The Generations Bridge is long. We all walk the path alone, together.
Dedicated with love to my recently departed best friend since high school, Ray Hunter. 56 years ago, after we graduated, Ray and Joyce introduced me and my first wife, Karen, to Sacramento’s cop bar, the Pine Cove Tavern, and Jimmy Buffett’s first album. It was a magical time.
When I was in my early thirties, I wanted to read Gail Sheehy’s 1974 landmark bestseller Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life, but never got around to it. I had just gone through a divorce, and as a single dad, I was working hard while learning for the first time to be an adult outside of the prescribed American Dream. I was just too busy growing up to worry about the future.
By the time I reached forty, I had remarried, CarolAnn, and was raising two sons, and we were still chasing the American Dream—a new life, new home, new start—all while climbing my ambitious career ladder.
By fifty, I was finally settling down, getting comfortable.
“Warm summer breezes, french wine and cheeses, put his ambitions at bay. Summers and winters scattered like splinters and four or five years slipped away.” - He Went to Paris, Jimmy Buffett
From time to time, I still thought of the book I hadn’t read, but reading its synopsis, I realized there is truth in it, and I was living each stage. I figured by then I must be into my third or fourth passage by Sheehy’s reckoning.
My career was achieving its peak, and the kids were suddenly grown, gone, independent, and happy. The lovely and feisty Carolann Conley Williams and I were empty-nesters well down the road of lifelong happiness together. Content with our lives, we scaled back our dreams. We knew each other better than we knew ourselves and learned from it. Piddling disagreements disintegrated into loving acceptance of our differences.
We’re happier now than we ever had before.
“And all of the answers to all of the questions were locked in his attic one day. He liked the quiet, clean country living, and twenty more years slipped away.” - He Went to Paris, Jimmy Buffett
Now I’m in my seventies and determined not to live in the past but to hold it all, the good times and the bad, and learn from it while moving forward.
As we watch our bellies grow and our faces sag, CarolAnn and I are more grateful now with each passing day. As Paul Harvey famously said, we are 38 years “on the road to forever together.”
Lest you think I’m just showing off, here’s my point:
I had an interesting revelation this morning.
Each of my days is now filled with all of the lifetime passages Sheehy identified: Renewal, Growth, Achievement.
As it turns out, this isn’t just a single life’s pattern; it all happens every single day.
RENEWAL: I always wake up refreshed, happy, and anxious to get the day started. I’m retired, CarolAnn still works, and each morning I send her off with a bit of conversation, lunch, and a kiss goodbye.
GROWTH: The rest of the day is like every day for everybody: I do things that need to be done and then dive into the things I want to do.
But by day’s end, I get tired. Sometimes being tired makes me a bit sad. I miss the kids, who are a thousand miles away, wrapped up in their own third or fourth passages. I wish we talked more often, and that makes me wish that I could phone my own long-gone mom and dad.
Yeah, even in your seventies, you want your parents.
ACHIEVEMENT: CarolAnn arrives home. The dogs excitedly and loudly welcome her and my somber mood vanishes. We’re back on track: dinner is somehow ready, we’re bingeing our TV favorites, and she’s immersed in her MMO (massively multiplayer online) role-playing game, Final Fantasy 14. (I play too, but can’t keep up with the dungeon battles and grinding. If that means nothing to you, ignore it.)
We’re getting old but not addlepated. She plays the game and tells me about it as we both watch TV. We laugh a lot together.
By 9:30 we shut it all down and go to bed.
9:30!
Forty years ago we were just arriving at the Yellow Rose honky tonk by 9:30. Now we’re tucking each other in with a goodnight kiss and our last smiles for the day. I read a book while she watches videos on her iPad until sleep takes us.
We wake up dark and early, starting another day together before sunrise.
There was a time in our twenties and thirties when life had no foreseeable ending. You just had to dodge the bad drivers and avoid crossing paths with crazy people. Outside of being struck by a falling toilet seat from a passing airliner, life’s continuance seemed a given.
After five or six decades of passages you start to realize how lucky you are to still be alive. Now I love each new morning as a miracle.
“Through 86 years of perpetual motion, if he liked you he’d smile and he’d say, Jimmy, some of it’s magic and some of it’s tragic, but I had a good life all the way.”
We grew up in the same town at the same time and shared some of the same experiences. Our careers were completely different yet we’ve ended up in the same place. I listened to you every morning on the way to work. Now I read your observations of life on my iPad. It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only mid 70s retiree whose thoughts about our stage in life parallels mine; “Renewal, Growth Achievement.”
A phone call with my parents is a frequent thought. I would reveal that when they turned in at 8:30 and I thought they were nuts that were now in the same place. You and CaroleAnn are troopers staying up ‘till 9:30!
BTW, The Pine Cove is still there. One of our haunts from 45 years back before Jen and I were married. We drove past it last week and the memories came right back. I’m sorry for your loss, Dave.
Thank you and good morning, MaryBeth.