Shit Gets Real At Forty

Dear Gentle Readers,

If you don't learn anything else from my many years of musings, learn this:

Shit gets real at forty.

No.  For real.

Here's what I mean:  If you are the average American, by the time you hit forty, your children are probably halfway to adulthood or in early adulthood.  You may be paying for their college education or trying to help them get established in a job or an apartment or anywhere that isn't your home.  And you may or may not be succeeding.  Or you may be stressing about how you will pay for their college education because, unlike when I came up, parents are more frequently having to take out private loans to pay for their children's educations.

If you are the average American, at forty your parents are probably alive but getting older.  You start to realize that they aren't immortal or invincible.  If they haven't planned for their retirement, you're justifiably concerned.  If they are infirm, you're more than concerned.  You're worried -- worried how long they can continue to live on their own and whether they will have sufficient health insurance to cover them.

If you are the average American, at forty you're staring down retirement within the next two and a half decades regardless of whether you have your own financial shit together, because time just marches on whether you have your shit together or not.  Even if you want to work past 67, you have to plan for the fact that you may not be healthy enough to do so.  If you are the average American, at forty you probably don't have enough set aside to retire by 67.  You may not even like your current job or your career path, but you're feeling vulnerable because you're officially within the group of workers subject to age discrimination.

In other words, at forty, you become the meaty center of a stress sandwich.

When I look at younger people in my family who are approaching or passing forty, I wonder if they really appreciate the position they're in and how they're on the clock to deal with what awaits them.

I got married five days before my fortieth birthday.  A month after my wedding,  I was officially unemployed.  After moving back and forth between practicing and teaching law with not much to show for it financially, I had to make a paradigm shift, as Black Man Not Blogging would call it.  The one thing I knew how to do was to get a state government job, like my parents and my material grandmother before me.  I consciously chose job security -- because you have to be an absolute idiot to get fired from a rank-and-file job with the State of California -- financial security, and a pension over career passion and excitement, at least for the short term.  Somehow, passion wasn't getting me where I wanted to be financially, and when I thought about how much I didn't have for retirement, I wasn't particularly excited.  I was willing to make some short-term sacrifices to get on the path to financial security and personal peace.  Over time, I was able to find a state government position that I enjoy with all the financial and retirement security I so sorely need.  It has come in handy.  I've been called to help out others financially, and I have been blessed to have been able to do so.

My advice to anyone who is staring down forty is this:  Stop.  Take stock of where you are, where you want to be, and who you are going to be responsible for.  Don't deny the truth of your situation, no matter how ugly it may be.  Be willing to make some sacrifices in the short term for long-term goals.  Be flexible.  I'm not saying dump your dreams, but be willing to find other ways to achieve them while shoring up your financial position and your retirement.  Assume that you won't have anyone to help you financially in old age, because that may in fact end up being the case.  If your current path isn't working for you financially or spiritually, find a different way.

Shit gets real at forty, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

The Hardest Part of Getting Old (The Stuff of Elders)

I'm 50.  It's safe to say that there are probably more days behind me than ahead of me and I am now an "elder" of my family.  The hardest part of getting old for anyone in my position is that, in these remaining days, you will be called upon to do the most difficult things, things you would not have been called upon to do as a child or even a young adult, if lucky, because they are the stuff of elders, and rightly so.

Most of the usual complaints about aging relate to health and body change -- diminishing eyesight and hearing, stiffness in one's bones, graying hair.  But all the while your body is changing and your faculties are diminishing, you will be called upon to do difficult things and, because of your stature as an elder, you will be expected to do those things with grace and magnanimity, and without showing grief or any self-indulgent displays of emotion.

You will be called upon to walk with loved ones who are older than you on their journey as they battle life-threatening disease -- cancer, Alzheimer's, you name it -- without showing the deeply-held fears you have about what those battles hold for them.

You will be called upon to make medical decisions for others that are literally the difference between prolonging a life no longer worth living and releasing them to God.

You will be called upon to decide when a suffering pet must die and be responsible for making that death occur.

You will be called upon to tell a elder in ill health that he can no longer drive, live by himself, or even continue to live in his own home anymore.

You will be called upon to console a grieving child facing the death of a loved one for the first time.

You will be called upon to bury your parents.

You will be called upon to radically change your life to ease the oncoming end of someone else's.

You will be called upon to change the adult diapers of your beloved elders without looking uncomfortable or inconvenienced and with a look of love on your face.

You will be called upon to give hope in the most hopeless of situations.

All of these things you will be called upon to do, all the while calling upon all the faith and home training your parents and elders instilled in you.  You won't think you can bear to do any of these things.

But you can.  And you will.  Because, as an elder, you're stronger than you know.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.