More of my life lies behind me than lies in front of me. I'm feeling pretty inadequate. Most people by the time they join AARP can reel off a list of accomplishments: a career, some real estate, an SUV or two, maybe a couple of mostly grown kids, a spouse or two or three, a 401K. Soon, they will be enjoying retirement in a 40-foot Winnebago with their significant other/soulmate, heading for an all-amenities-included campground in Sedona. These people did everything in the right order: college, career and family, then retirement. They zipped through time like a speedboat, crossing the ocean of life in a straight line. They didn't dawdle, they didn't detour. They got the job of working done, and now they get to live the American dream.
I didn't cut through time like a speedboat. My path has been more like an old lumbering wooden trawler, weighed down by barnacles and bottom feeders (AKA my relationships). My career boat wandered from port to port and foundered any number of times trying to steer around the rocks of commitment. Each time I abandoned ship: When you don't have a career, every job is a temp job. When I look back at my wake, I don't see a graceful symmetrical fan spreading out behind me. I see a wobbly, wavering path littered with the flotsam and jetsam of my erratic life.
When I look ahead, the only RV I see in my future is a broken down bus or conversion van, parked in some dusty campground where it ran out of gas. Actually, as long as it is warm and dry, that doesn't sound too bad.
