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Here I am holding a piranha on a fishing expedition during
an Amazon River Cruise in August.
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This was not a problem until a few months ago. In June, I was sitting in a classroom at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa with a group of teachers who were the newest class of the OSU Writing Project Summer Institute. My friend Ben assigned the quickwrite: Think about the future, he said. Where do you see yourself in five years, ten, maybe even 20?
Twenty years? I thought. Oh. My. Gosh. I'll be dead! Or close to it.
The thought hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. I know about mortality. I've prepared for it with an estate plan and all of that. But that quickwrite forced me to face the reality of my advancing age.
I've always had trouble letting go of doing what I love and turning jobs over to other people, even when I know intellectually I need to pass the responsibilities to a younger generation. My part time jobs are continuations of what I loved doing most during my teaching career.
Ben did me a giant favor though. He forced me to be honest with myself about my chronological age. I still feel at least 20 years younger than I am, but I also know that the best thing I can do right now is start letting go and start letting other younger people take over. The best way for my work to live beyond my life it to let others continue it.
The test came last weekend. It was time to pass on one of my jobs to other people. I was invited to stay for the meeting which would continue my work. I thought about it for awhile. Then I said good-by and went to lunch with friends.
"Call me if you need me for anything," I said on the way out. They will. But probably they won't.
I'm fine with that. They'll use what I did, build on it, change it, and make it work for a different time and different situations.
And that's ageless.
