When I Grow Up (a blathery post)

Truth: I am 63. In the prime of my life, right?

I think most people my age are not doing what I do almost daily which is to ponder the question, what do I want to be when I grow up?

For crying out loud, I AM grown up! I have grown-up children. I have grandchildren marching towards grown-upness. (Well, at least marching towards double-digits, which is just a hop-skip-and -jump away from teenager years which are pretty darn close to being grown-up.)

Most of my peers are pondering how to spend the retirement years. I struggle to relate.

I have a love-hate relationship with my job. I moved from part-time to full-time two years ago. The last full time job I held before that was 1984.

I took a whole bunch of years off to bake cookies and have teas, as Hilary Clinton once said. Except I didn’t have teas. I played with Lego, read aloud, changed diapers, did laundry, read aloud some more, and went for walks to the library. We went for family swims, had skunk watches (just what it sounds like — watching a skunk make a daily trek outside our sliding door), played with math manipulatives, raked leaves, painted Christmas cookies, colored Easter eggs, hid birthday presents, etc. etc. etc.

Now, at work, I struggle with having a boss. I struggle with the politics of the work-place, with the certain amount of fakeness that is expected required, and I just can’t do it.

I love planning things. I love when an idea comes to fruition. That happened with events twice this week.

I hate any sort of spotlight.

I love listening to people. I love stories. I love making people feel welcome. I now know how to say “Good morning” in at least 6 languages — which I really do use to greet people. The Russian lady, especially, always smiles and laughs when I do. Sometimes the “r” rolls in dubro utro and sometimes my tongue gets stuck. Either way, we both laugh about it.

I hate pettiness. I hate micromanaging. These aspects of my job come from on high and drive me crazy. I want to scream,”Just let me do my job!”

Sometimes I think back to my horse riding days. Some horses needed a tight rein, but most were much happier and cooperative with a little slack. I rode bareback most of time, and could feel the horse, which is kind of strange to explain to someone who has never experienced it. Horses and I got along well.

I LOVE having a counterweight to my idea-ness. I have such a person in my life right now who can see the potential in my ideas and can either point out the flaws or move them forward. Idea people need that someone else. They don’t micromanage; they work alongside.

All this is to get to the concept of Ikigai which I stumbled upon yesterday in my struggle to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I found a Venn diagram — and I love Venn diagrams — that illustrated it:

The more I read, though, about Ikigai — defined by Wikipedia as “a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living.” — I realized that this is one of those foreign words that doesn’t translate well. Even the Venn diagram — and I DO love Venn diagrams — sort of makes it formulaic, and it isn’t.

So — prime of life or not, I’ll still ponder what to be when I grow up. Maybe someday I’ll figure it.

But can someone just get rid of these darn micromanagers??!

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This way-too-wordy post is brought to you by Linda Hill’s Stream of Conscious Saturday prompt: prime