I promised you at the end of the last blog that I would share with you, as I enter Act III, my continuing pursuit of a self-image. Without one you are invisible to yourself; you have no direction. The tendency is just to sit and biodegrade. I needed a process to prevent that from happing to me.

My father told me when I was very young, “Life is hard, but don’t worry, it will get harder. Just handle it. Never consider giving up.”

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I had a several self-images that had given me direction in my life. I was identified as a biology teacher, a diver, a martial art teacher, and even a bicycle racer, during different segments of life’s path. Each one moved me forward. When I retired and moved to Washing state all of that was left in the past. I had a new life in a new environment. No friends and no direction to guide me on my path forward. It was scary — the time had come for me to, “Just handle it.”

I made a list of all the skills that I thought I was still competent to do. Across from it I made another list of all the things I thought I would like to do.  I drew lines from one list to the other to see what would rise to the top of most skills to work with. Boating and the marine environment was the winner. That was good because I had a boat and now lived only a half mile from the harbor.

The second highest on my list was to volunteer to do something worthwhile. I had available the perfect solution. There was the Coast Guard Auxiliary unit in Port Ludlow, where I lived. I joined it and so did my wife, Sharon. Between the two of us, we worked 40 to 50 hours a week, for 18 years. We were “Coasties.” Then we retired (again) and moved back to California. Sharon wasn’t well and we wanted to be close to our family and doctors.

We weren’t concerned about self-image then, just her health. Her life path was narrowing rapidly and after a year, ended. I was 80 years old and needed a new image to carry me forward, as I had promised Sharon I would. I made new lists; they were much shorter than they were when I was younger. The container/body I lived in had many dents and damaged parts, but was still usable.

Two things topped the list. I could still write, (I had written two text books and two training manuals for the Coast Guard), and use my camera. I became a writer and a photographer. It has worked for me. Since then, I have written six books, and produced eight Photo posters in the last six years.

Technology is racing past me on a motorcycle as I now stroll down my life’s path with my walker, and I love it. When someone asks me something now, I raise my arms and say, “I know nothing.” The great part of it is there is so much to learn now, I can now identify as a student of life. My dad would be proud of me, I’m just handling it.

I refuse to give up. I will dance along my life’s path just as long as my container will hold all my parts together.

            All of my life I’ve been a Wonderer.  I wonder how and why things work. We are born wonderers. Everything we encounter is new. What a marvelous time that is for us. Watch a young anything and feel the excitement they’re experiencing as they see, touch, smell, and taste every new thing they encounter. I work at keeping my wondering active through empathy as I watch the children I’m privileged to encounter in my daily life. They’re in the process of deciding what they’re going to be. We have to be something, in our society.

            The years pass, the number is quite variable, and we become adults. Now we know everything we have to and move into the process of survival in a society that requires us to furnish food, clothing, and shelter not only for ourselves, but for the family that we’ve acquired along the way.  And to do that, you have to be something.

            In my world, I became a teacher. My father decided to become a mechanic – – that was his world. Like you, we both became something. (Think. Who are you? What do you call yourself, in your world?)

            If you’re lucky, the time will come when you can retire. We work hard for many years to reach this Act III OF OUR LIVES. A time to do whatever we want. It’s wonderful for a while, then a strange feeling creeps into our lives. Perhaps it’s the desire to still be productive in some way. Perhaps you’ll feel the need to become someone different from how you spent your life up to this point. Today’s technology is moving so fast that if you take a long nap, you’re left behind.

            My father, a master mechanic for 35 years, came to live with me at age 86. He’d been retired for 21 years and lived in a mobile home. He was deaf and just worked in his garden most of those years. I had a new Ford pickup and he was admiring it. He said “I’ll keep it tuned up for you.” He opened the hood and looked at the engine. He just stood there for five minutes looking it over. He turned to me with tears in his eyes, I’d never seen this man cry in my life as he spoke the words I’ll never forget. “I have no idea how this engine works. I won’t be of any help to you.” He turned and went into the house. I started to cry then. A proud, old man had just lost his identity. He’d lost who he was his entire life. He was now invisible.

            I decided that wasn’t going to happen to me. When it came time for me to retire, I was going to find myself a new identity. In the next blog I’ll share with you just how I worked at that.