This week I enjoyed a late morning walk on the paved path around Hunter Street Park. The weather was perfect and the leaves were hinting at fall with branches displaying some orange-gold color. The nice thing about retirement is that I don’t have to walk in the early morning darkness like I did all those years before rushing to work. Now, I can have my coffee at my kitchen table, leisurely observing the birds and new blooms in my patio.

When I completed my hour on that path, I stopped by the bathroom. A woman, probably late-thirties, was at the sink with a child’s athletic shoe, water running as she scrubbed away something that was stuck to the sole.

I washed my hands at the sink next to hers.

“Good Morning,” I greeted her. “How are you?”

She looked up at me with a dimpled grin, and then responded.

“Oh, you know. Livin’ the dream.” Her voice was filled with irony as she looked down at the shoe.

A school-age, one-shoe boy around ten years old, came to the bathroom door.

“Mom!” he called out. He had a hockey stick in hand and hit the puck into the doorway.

I empathized with that mother at that busy stage of life, remembering the intensity of those years. Getting children to school on time, shuttling them to afterschool sports, last minute notices of projects that were due– and all of that while maintaining a house and career had been very challenging.

Now, when I hear people refer to livin’ the dream, which presumably is a shortened version of “living the American dream”, I think about all that dream entails over a lifetime.

Whenever I was a teenager, my dream was to go to college and become a nurse. That would be an accomplishment that would take years of effort–from the required courses in high school, acceptance to college–and then to a nursing program. Once that was successfully completed, I found a position as a graduate nurse and prepared for the licensing exam. Finally, I received notification by mail that I’d passed and was now a Registered Nurse. Almost immediately, I was pushed into a Charge nurse role; it was exciting, challenging, and scary.

Livin’ the dream as a twenty-two year old that was in charge of a unit of very sick patients, carried a mantle of responsibility that I couldn’t anticipate. I remember feeling the weight of that one evening when I went for my dinner break in the hospital cafeteria. I passed a custodian buffing the floor and envied him.

If he makes a mistake in his work, he’s not likely to kill anyone, I thought.

There was an adjustment period that I hadn’t realized when I envisioned being a nurse. I eventually settled into my role, learning to handle the tasks of that position. It would take a while to develop my confidence. I never talked about this with other people my age who were learning the skills of their new profession but I imagine now they had that same sort of adjustment.

I also dreamed of being a wife. Most of what I’d read or seen on television or in movies showed the romantic side of finding a husband and little of the day-to-day of married life. You could observe some of what that dream would be like through watching your parents. But then when you listened to friends, their experiences had been different. How could you know what married life would be like before you were in the midst of it? Sometimes it could feel like you were livin’ the dream you’d envisioned as romantic love and other times it would be filled with unexpected challenges that had you stuck.

Now that I’m seventy, I think of this phase of life that’s sometimes referred to as “the Golden Years.” I guess if you wanted to make it a more updated expression, you could say livin’ the Golden. There’s the idea that these years will be more carefree without the hustle of going to work, the pressures of raising kids, and more freedom to travel or just Be. I can say that my life has certainly been more relaxed than in earlier phases. But the other side of that livin’ the Golden is dealing with the slowing down of the body, the wearing out of parts, the reality that presses in that there’s less time. When we were in the busy years of raising kids, time seemed to stretch out forever.

I guess all this musing is about how we live in the present moment. No matter what phase of life we’re in, we’re only partially prepared for the realities of that season–both the enjoyable and the challenging.

When Mama was in her late seventies, I asked her, “Mama, what’s been your favorite time period of your life?”

I thought she was going to say her early twenties when she and her cousin traveled and worked in the war effort. She’d told us so many stories of the fun they’d had in their single years.

Soon she answered.

“Every age has good things,” she said in her matter-of-fact, typically pragmatic, response. “I can’t say any one was better than another.”

While Mama was never one to talk negatively, and sometimes she could have added in more of the truth of the difficulties of each age, her positive approach was refreshing. Too many others would idealize the “best years of your life” being in your youth and that was gone before you’d realized and took advantage of your “best years.”

Whatever phase of life you’re in, I hope you’re able to be present in that reality, grateful for what that time uniquely offers and accepting the ways you’re challenged and made to grow. Then you’ll truly be livin’ the dream, your best life.

Connie