An Ordinary Life

Maybe childhood, in the days of Cinderella fantasies, but certainly through high school and college, all I wanted or imagined was an ordinary life. I would get educated, but not too much, get married to the right young man, and would work at something, probably teaching, until we had children, at which time, my ordinary, perfectly wonderful life would really begin. I think I was raised to expect this life, like most women of my generation. I also wanted it especially to give it to my mother who had been widowed — shockingly at 33 years old — ending her particular dream of the ordinary life that had been her hope.

My dream was a simple picture, straight out of the Sound of Music and many other plays and movies of the time coming out of World War II: “…all I want from living is to keep you close to me. To laugh and weep together as time goes on its flight; to kiss you every morning and to kiss you every night. An ordinary couple across the years we’ll ride, our arms around each other and our children by our side.” * And they lived happily ever after, of course.

What I didn’t realize, among other things, is that life is not that simple, particularly when we are young. Did you know back then? Nor did I know myself well enough to realize that I would want more…and then more and then more…

I recently saw this quote: ” ‘Not everyone is meant to make a difference. The choice of an ordinary life for me in no longer an option.’ —Spider Man.”

Well, I’m not a Spider Man or a Wonder Woman and whatever difference I may have made and might still make are not those kind that you’ll see in a news feed, nor do they warrant any glowing awards. And yet, in my wanting more, I earned a graduate degree and moved gradually from teaching school music to being a school counselor to starting a private counseling practice.

Each part held its goodness along the way, as my life seemed to come from an unfolding rather than from one thing to discovering the next. As a teacher, I found great enjoyment in doing plays and performances with elementary and junior high students, and as a school counselor, I was inspired to be helping middle schooler individually or in groups or classrooms.

I seemed, however, to have a sense of Divine Discontent. What else is ahead? What could be behind the next door … or the next. This is not the same as “never being satisfied” which I was accused of being more than once. I began to learn the difference between “never being satisfied,” and being curious about what more I could do, and how I could do it, and what would it look like, both on my own and in relationships with others.

Out of that curiosity I became aware of opportunities I hadn’t even imagined even as I appreciated the life I was living. I wouldn’t have known to say it at any point, but I wanted to keep growing. What was not an option for me was living a life without growth. And the clock ticked and tocked, and the calendar pages turned, and now, as someone my age said “we are having our birthdays marking three quarters of a century.” Really? Seventy-five I can fathom — one year and then another and tick and tock. But three quarters of a century? That sounds profound. Meaningful, Important. Historical. At this historical age, I have more to do and become. More to grow.

Long ago, when I was only 50, I wrote about going with friends to the wedding of a dear high school classmate. Several of us flew there and others drove some distance. In my writing, I questioned why and what it might mean to us that we were all making this trip. And we were only half a century old then.

This year, for several days in a Florida coastal town, I met with sixteen women who had been my high school classmates. This group, fluid and as likely to be many fewer than the sixteen, has been getting together somewhere every year since our 20th high school reunion, when we were a mere 38. I had not attended the gathering in the last couple of years, and for some reason that I didn’t know, I felt compelled this year to be with everyone. And I was with everyone — present in rich and deep and lovely ways. There was hearty laughter and some quiet talks in pairs, threes, and fours, or larger groups. I felt the meaningful connections. Together we shared the things to consider when one is marking three quarters of a century: what are the summer plans; the long term plans when long term isn’t so long; how does one live when a spouse has died; what is happening with health; and what do we want to do while the doing is still good. These conversations took place with women who had all shared high school together at the same time in the same culture. Such a blessing.

A few days later, I drove for lunch to meet two men from high school — one a forever friend and the other my sweetheart in high school and after. They drove to meet me and were forgiving and teased endlessly when I got lost driving there and was very late — very. But we three love each other, always have, still do, and in this breakfast and this time of life, we could share some of the memories and what those memories meant and still mean and the importance of now for each of us. I was calm and deeply moved throughout lunch — even with our laughter — and felt this great blessing of sharing these few hours with these two heartful men as I had felt with the women a few days before.

On Facebook, I have recently reconnected with several people and families who were dear, dear friends and whose lives were entwined with mine and my young children’s before we moved away 31 years ago. To see these people again in photographs with their adult children and all ages of grandchildren, both delights me and makes me sad. How does one move on to what is next in life and not feel the loss of what was glorious in the past? It seems to me that this is one thing I must balance in this part of life: feeling the sadness of what is over, while at the same time being fully present in what is right now, at this time. Is that a forever learning for me?

I am remembering my son’s senior year in high school. As the end of the school year neared closer and closer, I would be missing not only this 18-year-old young man when he went off to college, but I would be missing the infant he had been and the two-year-old and the elementary school boy with a thrilling unchanged singing voice. All of those boys were gone, but I hadn’t missed them because here was the new and interesting boy each year, another year older. So I got out the old photos and shared them with some friends who hadn’t known us from my son’s beginning, and I cried that those years were really, really over. And then when it was graduation time, I was free to celebrate the whole way — all of it — along with my son’s getting ready for college and then leaving home to go there. I was free and happy for him to be on his journey. For me to have this great happiness in all of its fullness, I first had to pay attention to the natural losses I had let slip away. For me, that is necessary.

It continues to be necessary for me now, as the ticks and tocks run down more and more. I’m not counting the end of them yet, but I am aware of the importance of paying attention of what’s ahead this time and what I want to still be and think and feel — and even do.

Ten and then eight years ago as each of two older grandsons were in kindergarten, their school presented a program for families. The children sat on risers, and as the beautiful innocents sang What a Wonderful World with Louis Armstrong, I was deeply touched. Their big, serious eyes and light voices brought me joy. Through the various words of the song, various children held up large crayon-drawn pictures of the flowers and the rainbow and trees and the sun at the appropriate times. I guess my favorite part each of those year’s performance of this song was when the words were “I hear babies cry, I watch them grow, they’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know” and a precious 5-year-old held up a child’s drawing of a baby.

My older grandsons are now nearing 15 and 13. Again, I am aware of the ticking of the clock that moves them forward on the way to being the young men they are going to be. A few days ago, a video of Louis Armstrong singing What a Wonderful World came across my computer. I immediately sat to pay attention as that simple wisdom of the song filled me up. I saw my little grandsons again, so delighted to be in those performances, and a beautiful little child holding up the crayon drawing of a baby who will learn much more than I’ll ever know in whatever time of learning and being curious I have left. The tears and sadness overwhelmed me for a few minutes. But this time, for a few minutes only. As the tears and sadness clear, there is the delight for me once more. The delight of the beauty of the moment, the delight of my memories, and the delight of whatever is ahead, as always.

Is this the ordinary life I first thought I wanted before I thought I wanted more? Yes. And yes. It’s all true, isn’t it? As Margaret Mead said “Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.”

That is us, my dear friends who join me as I write, you and me, here right now. We are each unique and ordinary in our human life, living it with the only options we have to be actually alive — the option of embracing all parts of what is as we grow through life, all of what is unique about us and everyone else, too. And only in that way do we again have more of ourselves to bring to others.

May you feel the blessings that are in your life, as you consider your own growing and awareness and desires for a next as it unfolds before you…

With great love to you as always…

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