I stood on one side of the table scooping out barbecued chicken from a cooler into a carry-out container which was placed there by another volunteer on the other side of the table. Tina and I worked all day, as is our habit... a simple gesture to give back to Georgetown Little League during their opening day barbecue fundraiser. It’s the least we could do for an organization which served our family so well for so many years.
A volunteer we knew showed up opposite me to work her shift. We began chatting about our kids, and a discussion of seasons of life came up.
My wife and I are of the age where we have passed through many different seasons of life… not just short seasons, but long ones. The list is now long, even if we start with adulthood.
I had a typical season of wandering through the desert on shifting sands, trying to find my place. While never fully complete, that season at least reached some solid ground about the time Tina and I were married.
Our season of child rearing, technically covering about 30 years, came to an end last year. In the midst of that was a season of ballet lessons and little league, covering 10 years or so. There was a season of Christmas open houses mixed in there for a few years, as well as a season of Halloween and Christmas trails for the neighborhood kids. For years we organized an Easter Sunrise gathering on the beach. There was a season of high school and college marching band covering about 13 years. Now we are well into the grandparenting season.
We had a season of my self-employment, covering roughly 35 years. That has been followed by my current season of what one person calls “getting a real job where I go work with people every day”.
We have devoted ourselves wholeheartedly to each of these seasons. In the midst of them, we were exhilarated. They were all full of life, incredibly satisfying at the time, yet they required an energy that I can only marvel at as I watch others in those seasons.
The timing of the transition out of these seasons has been obvious, for the most part. We didn’t necessarily choose to end the seasons… they just naturally came to their end.
Something, however, has shifted in the past couple of years. That transition out of seasons has left me with a new realization of my age. So many seasons have passed, and I’ve had more trouble adapting to the last few changes of seasons.
Perhaps this is why people retire to Florida. They lose their willingness to adapt to the change of seasons. I have never understood the attraction to abandoning the change of weather seasons. You don’t get to experience the newness of life in the Spring without trudging through the deadness of Winter.
Yet in the situation I am describing, this analogy needs adjusting. I am not resisting just any change of season. The thing I am describing is the change of season from the fullness of life in the Spring and Summer towards the Winter. Yeah, yeah… there’s a purpose in the Winter… you don’t need to remind me.
Relatively speaking, I’m not that old. The fact is, there are folks who truly understand much better than I do about shifting seasons. They are well into their latter season of life. This fact, by definition, makes me a complainer who needs a slap in the face.
And then there’s this…we have no idea where we really are in our seasons of life. I just learned, while at the aforementioned barbeque fundraiser, that a co-worker / acquaintance was killed the previous day. The news shook me. She was younger than I am.
It was a harsh reminder… I could be in my very last season. Any of us could.
So how shall we spend THIS season?
