It is a cruel trick when your iPhone, your glasses, and the gunk in the corner of your eye are suspected of collaborating on a birthday surprise. As I picked up my phone, all the text and overnight notifications were much blurrier than I remembered the night before. A few blinks and removing the trifocals from the equation helped, but not enough to make me enthusiastic about starting another birthday. My eyes had evidently decided to celebrate by reducing their services. I would have appreciated a little advance notice, or at least a senior discount on the remaining vision.
Birthdays have a way of making me wonder what I’ve accomplished during the previous year. I’m not expecting a parade or a certificate suitable for framing, but I would like to feel that another trip around the sun was worth the fuel. For most of my adult life, I had a reasonably reliable way to measure that. Business accomplishments, financial goals, and the occasional successful attempt to keep our family functioning provided something tangible. These days, the financial goals have largely been met, but my brain hasn’t updated its procedures. It still wants to know what I’ve produced, preferably with a dollar sign attached. Unfortunately, most of what I do now produces dirty dishes, additional laundry, and the occasional heartfelt thank-you. If somebody knows of a surgical procedure that could reset my expectations without interfering with my ability to make coffee, I’m willing to discuss it.
Earlier this week, our hockey boys asked if he could bring four friends over for pizza and the hot tub. We agreed, which meant I headed to Sam’s for supplies and had the hot tub water tested. I wanted to make sure the boys’ first reaction to entering the water didn’t involve screaming or a request for medical attention. The evening also required our chicken barbecue pizza and chocolate chip cookies baked from a tub of dough purchased at Sam’s. We supplied the oven and removed the cookies before they burned, which I believe qualifies us as bakers under a sufficiently generous definition.
The boys ate their dinner, enjoyed the hot tub, and spent a few hours relaxing. At some point, one of them told me, “I really needed that.” He’s been coming to our Friday breakfasts, and I’ve gotten to know him a little. He’s a good kid, and his words meant more than the usual thank-you. Junior hockey can be a chaotic existence, with games, practices, roster changes, and enough drama to keep a television network supplied for several seasons. For a few hours, our house provided a place where none of that mattered. They could eat, laugh, and enjoy being teenagers without worrying about what the coach might have planned for them tomorrow.
Our recent visit from our Chinese exchange student provided another reminder of how strangely these things work out. Thirteen years after living with us, she still calls us Mom and Dad. When we welcomed her into our home, we weren’t thinking about building a lifelong relationship. We were probably more concerned with whether she would eat what we cooked and how much additional laundry she would generate. Yet here we are, more than a decade later, still part of each other’s lives. Between fostering, exchange students, children of missionaries, random kids we somehow acquired through Facebook, and hockey players, we’ve had more than 80 young people live in our home who weren’t biologically ours. That’s a lot of teenagers, a lot of meals, and an impressive amount of evidence that we never mastered the art of saying no.
Living near two of our adult children has created another collection of activities that wouldn’t look particularly impressive on a résumé. I can help our granddaughter with the grandkids, run an errand when someone needs me, or collect mail for a son who’s traveling. I’ve considered adding “Director of Residential Postal Logistics” to my résumé, although I would probably need to clarify that the position is unpaid and involves walking approximately 30 feet. My gym membership has been remarkably patient with my lack of participation, and there are plenty of hobbies I could pursue if I weren’t so available to everyone else. But I like being involved in my kids’ lives. I’m also somewhat amazed that after all the years we spent raising them, they still enjoy having us around. I would have understood if they’d wanted to establish a reasonable distance from the people who spent their childhoods telling them to clean their rooms and turn off the lights.
I wonder what the Andy of 20 years ago would think if I could sit him down and explain how everything turned out. First, he’d be surprised that we live in Oklahoma, where tornadoes go to mingle. He’d have a few questions about why we’ve invited hockey players to live with us for months at a time, considering that his knowledge of hockey was largely limited to being able to spell it. He’d be pleased that our children turned out well, relieved that Judy continued to put up with him, and delighted to discover that grandchildren are every bit as wonderful as people claim. He might also be impressed that we’ve expanded our cooking repertoire to include guacamole, although he’d probably wonder why it took us so long to discover avocados.
Twenty years ago, life sometimes felt overwhelming. Raising children, working, paying bills, and trying to keep everything moving in the right direction required more energy than I occasionally had available. I wondered when things would get easier. I would love to tell that younger version of myself that they do. Much easier, in fact. The kids grow up, the financial pressures ease, and you eventually reach a point where you can spend an afternoon doing something simply because you want to. You may even find yourself inviting five teenagers over for pizza without first calculating the effect on your retirement account.
I think the younger Andy would be happy with where we ended up. He might be a little confused by the older Andy’s reluctance to call himself retired, but that would probably be the least of his concerns after hearing about the hockey players. What he’d have more trouble understanding is why someone who has reached so many of the goals he once worked toward still spends time wondering whether he’s accomplishing enough.
Maybe that’s one reason I keep writing about my days. When I’m living them, they can seem pretty ordinary. A trip to Sam’s, a few hours with hockey players, an afternoon helping my daughter, or a visit from someone we welcomed into our family years ago. Writing about those moments gives me a chance to look back and recognize that they added up to something. I may not have accomplished anything that would impress a banker, but I occasionally manage to do something that matters to another person.
As I start another year, I would like to get better at giving myself credit for the life I’m living rather than continuing to measure it against the one I used to have. I doubt I’ll ever completely silence the part of my brain that wants a more impressive accounting of my time. It’s been running the operation for decades, and I don’t expect it to surrender control without a fight. But if another year brings more opportunities to be there for the people I care about, I’ll have accomplished something worth celebrating.
Even if my internal accounting department refuses to approve the expense.
