My Third Act

 

I'm in my Third Act

This is me, my wife and two grandkids, as I get more firmly into being a senior citizen

• 
• 
• 

 I remember when my mother was 71 and she seemed really old.  Now I'm at that point being a member of the first class of baby-boomers born in 1946.  I realize that I'm in the Third Act of my life.

I've got more time behind me than I do ahead.  So, I need to choose very carefully what I do and think about, where I put my emotional and physical energy.  

For some time, I've tried to whittle down my bucket list and hone my priorities.  What was important to me ten, twenty or thirty years ago is way less important now.

How do I make my final act count?  That's what this blog is about.  I'm trying to make it a readable version of what I'm doing and not doing and how I score myself on how well the effort is going.

Senior citizens: How far back do you remember?

What do you remember and how specific are your memories?  What people do you remember?  How about conversations?  Do you remember sermons?  Do you remember the person who sat in front of you in church

As I move more firmly into older age as a member of the first class of baby-boomers, my life started right after World War II ended and before the Korean War began.  In 1951, I was five years old and it was the fifties when life was dramatically different.

I had some pretty out-sized people in my early life, including my mother and my father and lots of aunts and uncles.  They all contributed to who I am today.

Now that I'm 71, many of these memories are really fuzzy if they're still there at all.  Is there a way to bring them back.

Novelist Warren Adler, 87, says in this post that he works hard at it everyday and has had some success.  He says the memories are still clearly in our brain.  He says, "Everything that happens in the life of a human being is stored somewhere in the brain, intact and perhaps as fresh and viable as when it was first experienced."

One of my bucket list items is a written version of my life that I can give my grandkids.  They should know about the patriarch of their family.  And it's a great story.

 

Senior citizen: Are you coasting in your day-to-day life?

Are you a senior citizen?  Retired?  Have you found yourself coasting in your day-to-day life where meaningless daily activities consume your thinking and your day?

I have found myself getting into this rut of coasting through life as I get further into my third act.  I recognized this challenge for quite awhile.  Come four o'clock in the afternoon, my thoughts immediately go to Dr. Phil on the television and wondering what his program will be about.

In my spiritual life, I've noticed this propensity too.  Quite often I can coast into a routine of going to church on Sunday, talking about the sermon at lunch and then letting my grip loosen on the content that the pastor taught about.

Then last night, I found a blog post by a young pastor in the South Dakota, Adam Weber who tackled this topic head on.  It's short and easy to read and tackles a major challenge for a lot of people.  It's too easy to coast.

Are there any easy solutions?  Doesn't seem to be.  It requires recognizing it as a problem and then praying for wisdom and discernment.  It's worth a read.

Zeek Braverman of Parenthood was right about the importance of families

Remember Zeek Braverman, the patriarch of the big family on Parenthood?  His family was composed of individuals, including his kids and grandkids.  They often disagreed with each other and their family dinner table often resembled a loud and disagreeable people who had many differences, but also important similarities.

They were able to set aside the vehemence of their disagreements and come together when they needed each other.  

This led to Zeek telling his teenage grandson that there's nothing more important than family.  I agree with that for the most part.

When my wife and I talked about getting married more than three decades ago, we decided to make God our number one love and each other number two and then our family.  We started  with just the two of us.  There are now eleven of us.

How do you make the third act of your life count?

 

 

Even though I didn't pay much attention in literature classes I took in high school and college, I know that most plays have three acts with the final act being the time where all the disconnected pieces come together and are resolved.

Given my age, I can clearly see that I'm in the third act of my life where loose ends come together and my bucket list is being whittled down to a manageable and realistic size.  

I'm finding that it's easy to get distracted by all the mail I get from funeral homes and morticians, hearing aid dealers and retirement homes.  There's lots that I want to do yet.  

Now I know that God could say tomorrow that my time on this earth has expired, but I'm hoping that I have a few years much like my mom and dad who lived well into their eighties.

This blog is a record of how I'm sorting out this winnowing process where I set my priorities and sharing what I've learned.  I hope that others can learn from my third act experience.