Today I recognize (because celebrate is probably too strong a word) another trip around the sun. It’s strange to be as old as I am and still not quite feel like an adult… or somehow feel like I’m less of an adult than other people my age. It’s not that I feel childish or immature, but it’s almost as though I’m still trying to live up to other people’s ideals or have yet to grow into myself. It’s a surreal feeling – this not feeling like an adult. It’s as if my frame of reference is off. I think of when my parents were this age (not that I was paying much attention then), but they always seemed more like adults than I currently feel – more responsible, more settled, more grown up.
I suppose some would say it’s good if you don’t feel your age. To be clear, I’m not describing feeling youthful – far from it. I’m tired and I get aches. I have trouble sleeping and I think I’m becoming more set in my ways. I look for quiet moments more than I look for adventure. None of these things are associated with youth and its many exuberances. Maybe I feel this way because I lack many of the traditional markers adulthood. I’m not married. I don’t own my own house. I have a career, but it’s my third (many of my colleagues have been at it much longer than I have). My friends are still raising kids – I’m not.
Birthdays, like the start of anything – a week, a year, a job, a relationship – are times of review and renewal (or at least they can be). If every Sunday I tell myself, this is the week I’m going to write more or exercise more or eat better or reach out to friends more, then birthdays and anniversaries and holidays and New Years are like those Sunday promises magnified. “Ok, but this time I mean it… I’m really going to do it.” The problem with all of that (there are actually several problems) is that change is often gradual and not light-switch sudden. Behavioral change is usually marked by a series of incremental gains and setbacks. The other problem (I said there were several) is that if these types of changes were easy, if the path wasn’t fraught with roadblocks and obstacles, the change probably would have already occurred.
Nevertheless, I spent a few minutes here and there trying to “get my life in order” – finances, digital legacy and footprint, ambitions (more like mild aspirations), and critically examining my daily routine… you know all the things one does as part of their birthday celebration. At one point, I tried to switch the auto-payment on a bill from one bank to another. I had to call and leave a message and couldn’t check that one off the list. That small task has been on my back burner for weeks, and calling to leave a message, after finally getting around to doing it, is precisely the type of anticlimactic result that reinforces why I never got around to doing it in the first place. If I’m going to set aside the time to do it, and look up account numbers, etc…. I want to actually accomplish the task. I can predict the agent will call back at a time entirely inconvenient for me, I won’t answer, he’ll leave a message, and it’ll be another week before I try again because I hate playing phone tag. Send me an email or let me self-resolve on your website… I suspect they force the phone call as a way to try to upsell products – I don’t care for those types of tactics. This is why things don’t get done.
At work, I used the impulse to reflect as justification to clean out my inbox, review and revise my to-do list, revisit our strategic plan, and study best practices/benchmarks on what my organization “should” look like and how it “should” operate. I use quotes because the best practices, the ideal, are not attainable for an organization our size and they are also filled with eye-roll worthy organizational jargon – jargon filled with verbs like engage, prioritize, empower, and implement. That’s not to say the ideal isn’t without use, but that it needs to be scaled back a bit – of these benchmarks, which are reasonable – where can we make progress. Pick one or two things and do them well.
These are all adult things to do – organize bills, revisit strategic plans, conduct a gut-check organizational assessment, but they don’t make me feel any more like an adult.
Tonight, wanting to do something close to a celebration, I went to an outdoor concert. Most of the bands around here are party / wedding bands. For me, the draw is less about the music and more about wanting to be out around other people. Two songs into the main act, thunder and lightening canceled the show and sent everyone to their cars. That’s pretty much how the day ended – with little reverie, no major resolutions to be better, and even less fanfare – just me, sitting in my car in a field waiting for traffic to clear, having to pee.