Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 30

Now and in the Future

At the moment, I am happy with my life. I have been working at the same company for over 10 years and expect to retire from there. It is a comforting thought. There is money in the bank and we are saving regularly. Virtually no debt. I could pay off what we owe today and be left with just a house payment. The lessons I learned the hard way have paid off now. It’s why adversity, if you learn from it is a good thing. Not so good if you don’t.

I think a lot about what I want to do next. My feeling is that we will be okay in retirement financially, assuming the economy doesn’t completely tank for 10 years or more. I also am working on my heath through exercise and better eating habits. These are all things that everyone should do and I don’t intend to stop there. I have other plans for my later years.

I notice that my in laws are doing pretty well for being in their late 70s and early 80’s. They watch their food, exercise and do one more thing that I want to emulate. They keep their minds and bodies busy. I have this planned as well. I have a second career planned as a photographer and writer. Yep, the career I wanted as a young man is going to be my second career. I start next semester taking classes with the objective to get a degree in Fine Arts in a few years. Obviously I want to learn as much about art and photography as I can so my photos are more than snapshots. You have to find a distinctive style to make it in any photographic endeavor, even stock photography. It has to stand out amongst the millions of photos out there. That is part of my journey.

The other half will be writing about my family history and publishing it. I already manage a couple of web sites and want to start posting stories over there. Eventually all of this will be assembled as a book and published for posterity. I figure that between those two endeavors, I will stay quite busy. Who knows, I may get a break and be able to contribute to some magazine or online community and get paid for it. Woohoo! Grandma Moses did it with her painting, I intend to do it with my photography and writing. The future is mine for the taking.

One more item before I shut this down for a while.

Being a grandpa is something I have known how to do for a long time. Being a parent of adult children is not. It is sometimes hard to see them as an adult from a relationship point of view. It’s like something that was popular in the early 70s called Transactional Analysis. It states that everyone follows 3 basic roles, Parent, Adult and Child. Parent-Child relationships are normal as long as both agree on the roles. Child to Child and Adult to Adult work just fine as well. Parent to Parent is not the greatest as there is no clear idea who is the boss in that situation and Parent-Adult is the worst of all. As a parent of an adult, you want to give them advice and help based on what you know from your experience and observations. As an adult they are not always happy with your intrusion. So, you have to stop being a parent (at times) and be an adult. An adult will let them make their own mistakes and bad choices. An adult will grieve with them, but not at the level a parent does. The same goes for the joyful times, they are far more sweet as a parent. I understand, in a small way, what our Heavenly Father goes through. The joy he feels is great when we do well. The pain he feels when our decisions are not in our best interest is probably greater than our own. I know that’s how I feel.

So, what do I do? I advise when asked, try to set a good example. Show them that they have to be equally yoked and sacrifice for one an other so their families will have strong bonds of gratitude between them. Love them unconditionally (which I do) and support them through success and crisis. If, at the end of my life, my family will sacrifice for one another, have joy with one another and love one another unconditionally, I will die happy.

That’s pretty far off, I think, dying. So I intend most of all to live with joy, follow my passions, play with my grandkids and maybe visit Mount Kilimanjaro or even hike it if I am strong enough, and I WILL remain strong.