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my sister & me: Born the same day 14 years apart

  I am 74 years old. My sister, born on the same day as me in June, is fourteen years younger. I would like to be fourteen years younger in theory, but honestly? I'm pretty chill with where I am on the journey. Fourth quarter, last act — all of that doom saying still makes me laugh as I raise a toast to another year on this earth. Check back when I’m 84, things will probably have changed. For now I like who and where I am. The shy little kid is long gone. The angst of young adulthood is in the rearview mirror. The exhausted resignation that I would never be more than I was as I tried to raise children and earn a paycheck is a dim memory. I am still standing, still curious, still excited that life ushers new folks like you onto my stage as the story continues.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL

         June is also when we celebrate Father's Day. My dad has been gone many years, but I remember him as a doctor who was seldom home because babies did not schedule their appearance, a disciplinarian who believed that rules built character, and a faithful man. In his fourth quarter he changed to a content man who kept busy with wood shop, charitable work, and loving up my mom. He was no longer driven to succeed because he already had. The faith remained, the discipline softened. The day before yesterday, I received an invitation to a Forster Family reunion in Andale, Kansas. On the front of the invite was a photograph of my dad's family: Mom, Dad, and eleven children. My father is in the top right corner — young and handsome and wearing a flummoxed expression as if he isn't entirely sure he is in the right place.    

THINGS WE SHARE   

      I wish he were here so I could tell him it all turned out okay for both of us. The confusion lifts, you find your place— or your place finds you— and either way you end up somewhere that you were meant to be. You don't travel alone but both of us thought we did. We believed that  putting one foot in front of the other and marching to the right  drummer was the key to success. In reality it was mentors, friends, and lovers that changed our journey, Even the people who weren’t kind changed us. We worked harder so that we wouldn't be them.

THE BOTTOM LINE

     There is so much that happens along the way — circumstance, happenstance, the roads we stumble onto and the ones we're pushed down—and all of it molds us. When we're children, people guide us with gentle hands. When we're young and strong, we were pulled and tugged and buffeted by people who loved us, challenged us, sometimes damaged us. Eventually, we reach the still point. We have seen enough of life to know that chaos has a shape. We sit and watch and occasionally nudge someone in a better direction, but mostly we think: this is not who I thought I would be.

Then we think: thank goodness.

FULL CIRCLE

      I say 'thank goodness' because the person I thought I would be was smaller, less seasoned. She hadn't yet met the people who would crack her open and hatch the real her. She hadn't lost anyone or loved anyone well enough to be changed by her emotions. She was still waiting to become someone worth being.

        My dad in his youth had no idea who he was going to turn out to be either. None of us do at the start. That's not a flaw in the design. That's the whole point. It’s a great ride. The good news is that it doesn’t stop. I will be different next year and the year after that, I will simply change at a different pace.I bet you'll be right there with me, ready to tell a story about how you've changed, what you've learned, or something new that excites you. And I bet you'll look back and realize that, right now, you are exactly where you need to be, ready to take the next step.