Late Sunday Musings: So It’s 2018, How Has Your Life Turned Out?

Mrs. Denmarkguy has been keeping me in the loop of ongoing “events” unfolding in connection with her upcoming 35th High School reunion.

Seems the organizing committee is very hot-to-trot to get her to attend as she is — evidently — one of the very few people from her graduating class who “became something.” So they want her to come and address the reunion group. 

She has mixed feelings about it, but since they are offering an "all expenses paid" trip for her, she has decided to go.

Reflecting on Your Life

This year would be my 40th anniversary of graduating high school. However, I really have little to no sense of what that would actually mean, in functional terms. 

Not that I have been — or would be — invited to anything!

I know exactly ONE person I went to high school with, and that’s only in a very peripheral (Facebook) sort of way. In truth, I have no idea what any of those people are doing, what became of them, and I have very little interest in finding out. High School represented pretty much one of the deepest darkest pits of my existence.

However, the whole “high school reunion” thing coming to the forefront did make me sit and ponder life, for a bit.

How did my life turn out? Does it look ANYthing like the life I perhaps had in mind, when I was a hopeful 18-year old?

Truths We Face

Truth is, I had little idea “what I wanted my life to become” when I was 18.

I was at boarding school in the UK. In May 1978 I took my last standardized exit exam and two hours later I was on a train bound for London, then Harwich and a ferry to Denmark. I just wanted out of there. It was an escape from hell. The most memorable thing I recall from my last day of school — to wit, I still remember — was this really sweet Scottish girl I shared a train compartment with from Southampton to London Waterloo. 

I spent the summer working odd jobs and hanging out at my auntie’s house in Denmark. By September, I’d formally “left home,” and was living in a cheap apartment in the south of Spain. 

Two years later, I moved to Texas to go to college. In a sense, it was another “escape act,” in this case to get away from the long sticky fingers of my family which had been after me to “do something with my life.” 

Whatever that might mean...

I did go to college — because it shut voices around up — but I still had no real idea of what I wanted to do, or what I wanted my life to become. Or mean.

By Then it was 1985.

I Have Never “Adulted” Well

In essence, I have never been particularly good at being an adult.

That's actually a lie. I have always been quite good at "doing what was necessary," I just never had any particular interest or desire to.

If I were invited to a high school reunion — aside from having no interest in going — I wouldn’t have a thing to tell anyone.

Sure, I graduated college, but I never held any kind of job related to that degree. I pretty much never held any kind of job, for that matter.

That's another lie. I have had a few — mostly short term — jobs. I developed an almost 100% track record of the companies I worked for either (a) going bankrupt or (b) my job being outsourced to the Far East. 

I certainly never had a "career."

In some ways, you could argue that I have spent the past 40 years artfully dodging any kind of “formal” work or responsibility. With a few short exceptions, I have been self-employed — in some capacity — most of my life. But not because I wanted to “have a career” or “build a business,” but because I simply needed to come up with a way to make enough money to cover the cost of living.

And so I did.

The "Cost" of a Peaceful Life

The one thing I did succeed at was having a fairly peaceful life. 

Whereas it has been 40-odd years of financial instability and struggle, it has been mostly peaceful. There's an odd symmetry in that, in the sense that when I have been asked what I wanted to "do" with my life, the inner answer I often thought, but seldom spoke, was "be at peace."

I watched people around me "strive" and drive for so-called success; I watched them have ulcers and heart attacks at 35... all for what? I watched people build fortunes... have McMansions and fancy cars and Rolex watches. 

I watched a woman at the height of "success;" happily married, multi-millionaire, two lovely kids... grab one of her husband's guns and scatter her brains all over the bedroom of their house. 

I would go to spiritual and self-development retreats and I realized that all I wanted to do was be the groundskeeper in one of these peaceful venues.

I learned that the world neither kind to — nor interested in — peaceful people.

When I Was 18...

I thought I would get a job of some kind that paid reasonably well... I would live a modest-to-austere life and save every conceivable penny and hopefully end up with enough saved that I could simply "quit the world" and live off the investment income.

Not yachts and trips to Bora Bora... just a chance to vanish; to become a "shadow."

The world definitely does not support someone with such an "ambition."

But you know? Even if it's on food stamps and occasional public assistance, I still have managed to have a pretty peaceful life.

It doesn't look much like what I thought it might... but it has been OK.

And — somehow — that seems to make me better off than a lot of people...

But I'm still not going to any stinkin' High School Reunion!

How About YOU? How has your life turned out? Does it look anything like you imagined or hoped, when you were high school age? Did you do your best? Did it turn out OK? Any regrets? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

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