At what point do we no longer qualify as a work in progress?
Throughout our lives we content ourselves with the fact we are indeed a work in progress (WIP). We screw up and we allow ourself to be comforted by the fact we need to learn lessons. Grow as human beings and make mistakes.
So, at exactly at what point does this excuse run out of gas.
What point on life’s highway does the motor conk out and we can no longer use the work-in-progress-get-out-of-jail-free card to keep cruising along?
Is it in our thirties? After we have survived the teen years, stumbled through our twenties and are now part of the generation we were taught not to trust? Isn’t that a good jumping off point?
Looking back from my perch here in old lady land, I’d say definitely not.
There is a ton of stuff we missed out on in our thirties that must be carried forward into our forties. Marriage rules, self-sacrifice, raising children, peacemaking and trying to allocate our time wisely.
We realize there was actually no time left for ourselves at ten at night when we rolled into bed after a day of chasing kids, cooking meals and being superwoman.
So as we approached our fiftieth year, kids older and college bound, our marriage either intact, or about to come unglued, are we still now considered a work in progress?
Objectively speaking this is definitely not the point we can say we are in full bloom.
Now we face new challenges like empty nesting, attempting to have a conversation with our mate that doesn’t center around the kids, no more carpools or gigantic hauls at the grocery store. Perhaps widowhood or divorce impels us into the future alone.
Yet if we were progressing all through our years until fifty, shouldn’t we now have the skills to deal with all these new feelings and trials?
Work should be completed, right? Our time is ours and we can do anything we want. Hello restaurants every night and days waiting to be filled with time just for us. We are now our own boss and we can plan our own calendar.
No watching our son running around in pouring rain on a slippery soccer field and feeling like the worst mother ever. No more hearing ourself described as lame or out of touch by our teen agers. No more horrified as we begin paying attention to anti-aging commercials on TV.
We enter a new world when our children leave home. It’s about trying to arrange time with friends and even figure out what we’d like to do with our lives now that we are not a chauffer, a laundress and a cook.
But are we still a work in progress?
I’m betting, yes. Simply by virtue of the fact we have all new lessons to learn.
New skill sets that must addressed like, aging, no we are not twenty anymore. We slide through our fifties feeling proud of coping and managing this new era.
Then we face the sixties, a tricky time with issues that arise unlike any before.
So here we are still a WIP with new questions to ask and adjusted priorities. Have things changed because of the work we did? Or as a natural result of the aging process?
Despite the reason we now see things through a different lens.
We are suddenly faced with the fact that life is in our face. Everyday tasks and decisions that allowed us to live outside of the harsh truths works no longer.
Of course we haven’t reached sixty without confronting the sadness, tragedy and hardships humans suffer. Yet life had a way to distract us with the flurry of Now we have time to reflect on those ignored truths we set aside as we changed diapers, packed lunches, bandaged bruised knees and laughed at the Muppets.
Unaware that as a WIP all these moments meant something to our growth, our maturity, our life lessons.
Now in our sixties we realize they very much did.
We must find new ways to fill our days in a meaningful way. Our responsibilities have shifted and our little birds are out of the nest as we fight not to notice its emptiness.
Are we happy in this new world seeking adventures, looking forward to each day with curiosity and excitement? I’d hope so because isn’t that a part of the work we did? Learning to embrace each moment and find joy in every day?
I guess we could say we’ve grown, learned and flourished with no more work to do. Yea for us! We did it.
Or did we?
No way. Each era delivers new works to achieve. Facing them, using the information we gathered should help us more easily accomplish new challenges.
Health issues, responsibilities toward our aging parents, facing our own mortality now looms larger than twenty years hence. Our seventies have brought us to new challenges and obstacles.
If we’re lucky we’ll continue moving forward. Learning, growing, progressing and treasuring times in which we find joy and satisfaction like simply awaking to another day.
I suppose the answer is we are always a work in progress. There is no diploma we can earn, no award to win, no stage to step upon to become a completed WIP. I imagine when we believe we are finally there, is when we must understand there is always much more to do.
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