I ran into an old friend last week who I hadn’t seen in a while, so we were updating one another on our lives, showing each other pictures of our grandchildren, discussing our medical ailments, the usual conversation of anyone over 65. I have added bursitis to my list, which I didn’t even know was an actual thing you could get. I thought it was something Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies had, like rheumatiz. But it’s an actual thing, and I have it. I told my friend about it, then also mentioned I was going to retire and he said, “What are you going to do?”
What are you going to do? We’re asking that question earlier and earlier. I caught myself asking my three-year-old grandson the other day, “Miles, what do you want to do when you grow up?” Geez, talk about pressure. It turns out he wants to be a firefighter, and every day puts out several imaginary fires and rescues innumerable cats from trees. When I was his age, I wanted to work at the Dairy Queen and be paid in ice cream. Then, during high school, with the encouragement of my mother and because I liked Perry Mason, I thought of becoming an attorney, but all the attorneys I knew said being an attorney wasn’t like Perry Mason. By then, I was attending a Quaker meeting and noticed the pastor only worked one day a week, and thought, “That’s the job for me.” So here I am. But it’s interesting, isn’t it, how often that question arises in our lives, even after we’ve settled on a vocation? What are you going to do?
That question never goes away. I’m retiring, but I’m still being asked that question. What are you going to do? But is that the question we should be asking one another? Perhaps we should be asking others, and especially ourselves, a question far more important than the vocation we choose. Not “What are you going to do?” but “Who do you want to be?” Who do you want to be? No one has asked me that yet. Who do you want to be?
I want to be useful. I want to give and not take. I want to be more upset by cuts to education and less upset by a downturn in the stock market. I want people to think of me when they need help, and I want them to call me. I want to mow my neighbor’s yard when they’re on vacation. I want to pick up trash on our road like Joan does every spring. I want to be useful.
I want to be open. I once heard it said that humans are ingenious at sniffing out minor differences to figure out whom we should despise. There’s a man in our neighborhood who rages about all the immigrants moving to our town. “Those people,” he calls them. He wants Danville to be the way it was when we were kids, which is to say White. There are now 42 languages spoken in the Danville schools, which I think is fascinating and a sign of vitality, and he thinks is scary and terrible. So he’s selling his house and moving to the Villages in Florida, which is 97% White. That is not who I want to be. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sniffing out minor differences. I want to be open.
I want to be adventurous. I want to think thoughts I’ve been warned not to think. I want to dabble in heresy, talk with total strangers, take trips without making any reservations, maybe even become a Buddhist and alarm my friends. I want to walk through neighborhoods I’ve been told to avoid, and stop insuring my life against any and all eventualities. And here’s a shocker. I want to sip whiskey just once, which I have never done, because I was told by my Baptist grandmother that one drink of alcohol would make me an alcoholic. But some cold winter’s evening, sitting next to our woodstove, while chatting with dinner guests, I want to have a nip of whiskey. Something distilled in Scotland and made with peat. Just once. I want to try new foods. I’m tired of fried chicken and coconut cream pie. It’s time for some Chinese food. 1.4 billion people can’t be wrong. And I want to get a tattoo of a little man pushing a lawn mower across my bald head. I want to be adventurous.
I want to entertain the possibility that I’ve been wrong about some people. Wrong about poor people, and for that matter, wrong about rich people. Wrong about Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses and snake handlers. Wrong about young men in loud trucks with big American flags. Wrong about teenage girls who say “like” and “you know” and pop their bubble gum. Wrong about harried, worn-out mothers in Wal-Mart yelling at their children, but who also tuck those same children into bed at night, kisses them goodnight, and tells them she loves them. I want to entertain the possibility that I’ve been wrong about some people.
I want to accept my difficulties with good humor. Yes, bursitis sucks, but ibuprofen is a miracle drug and cheap as dirt. I want to stop telling others about all my problems, about those unexpected bills, those pesky neighbors, those sneaky Russians, and crooked politicians. No one likes a crank, so I don’t want to be one. I want to accept my difficulties with good humor.
I want to accept my age and look it. No Botox for me, thank you. No hair transplants. Is there a worse thing than hair plugs? I don’t think so. No baseball cap turned backwards. No dressing like a teenager. I want to accept my age and look it.
Most of all, when I think of who I want to be, I want to be dependable. I want to be relied upon, trusted with important tasks, a reliable friend, someone whose children and grandchildren will seek out for comfort and counsel. When I die, I don’t want anyone to say, “It’s about time.” I want to do all of this without getting the big head, without mansplaining, without demanding deference or submission. I want to be relied upon the same way we relied upon Mr. Rogers to say and do the right thing. I want to give money to people who need it, support good causes, and be a friend to the friendless. I want to be dependable.
From now on, when someone asks me what I’m going to do when I retire, I’m going to tell them I want to become a little better at being human. I’m going to try to be useful when I can, open when I’m tempted to close up, adventurous when routine gets too comfortable, and dependable when someone needs a steady hand. That seems like a worthy retirement. And if, at the end of it all, folks can say I was kind, generous, trustworthy, and mostly good company, that will be more than enough. That is who I want to be.