Is There Life After Retirement?

Well, We DID Cut Our Hair

Posted on: August 24, 2012

It’s a little before 6PM on a Thursday evening.  I was going to simply log in to see if a check cleared, but Spotify comes up automatically and I thought “why don’t I track down that Ambrosia song that I’ve been wanting to hear” and you know how one-thing-leads-to-another so yep, here I am… thirty minutes later … awash in ancient rock & roll.  BTW, when exactly did R&R get old enough to be called ancient?

But I digress…

Here’s the point:

In the middle of fifty-eight and one-half year old me totally rocking out to Crosby singing “Almost Cut My Hair” I caught a whiff of the absurdity of it. Not because of my age – heck just TRY to stop me, lol.  The “absurdity” is simply that the current me often forgets that I am in fact THE establishment now, and have been for a couple decades.  It’s a very weird time traveling kind of thing – like when Marty McFly kept running into himself in the Back to the Futures.

It makes the 58 year old me want to ask the 20 year old me, “Well, how’d I do?  Did I live up to your values?  Or did I sell out?”  Although it would make me a little nervous, I would like to know what she thinks.

xo,

me

PS: I’m not talking about win-win compromise and maturing; that’s all good.  I’m talking about “the compromising of integrity, morality, or principles in exchange for personal gain.” Definition compliments of Wikipedia.  😉 And I’m thinking “personal gain” can encompass many things, including convenience.

Image

12 Responses to "Well, We DID Cut Our Hair"

I’m not ready to have that conversation with the 20-year-old me yet. Let me know what she says. 😉

Will do. Will have to get my courage up a little first.

Okay, I think one of her comments would be, “Let’s discuss those Los Angeles years.”

I think she would be pleased.

I think you did fine, Marti! Nice piece here!

The 20-year-old me is someone I really don’t like. She was such a twit. She had her excuses and, perhaps, some justification, but fortunately over the past almost 48 years, she has learned compassion, empathy and, hopefully, gained at last a modicum of wisdom.

LOVE this!
20 year old me? sheesh..i barely remember that chick…

The 20 year-old me generally needed a good smack upside the head. I sometimes think I’d love to travel back and deliver….but then I begin thinking “what if?”

It may frustrate me to be a broke college student at almost 37 years old, but had I not made “mistakes” at 20 that derailed my college aspirations, I might have ended up far deeper into preparation for a career that I ultimately would not have been able to deal with.

I find myself depressed over my financial state recently. But if I went back and “fixed” my errors, I can almost guarantee I wouldn’t have created my son at the time I did. And I can’t picture my life without him.

I guess maybe the 20 year-old me knew what he was doing after all.

Now the 15 year-old me, that freaking kid……

Oh, and BTW – I missed the hell out of you. 🙂

Been thinking about this all day. I’m pretty sure my 20 year old self would think I was a failure. But at 44, I’m happy. But still… so many what if’s! One thing is for sure, both my selves would (and do) like hanging with the two of you! Awesome, pic, Marti!

I love the 70s pic of you! I’m not sure what the 20 year old me would say to the 44 year old me but I sure know what I would say to her 🙂 Hmm, what a coincidink, there’s a 44 year old Jana above me, is that my Jana?

I’m your Jana!

Leave a Reply to Sandy Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s


  • Joyce Burke: This was great too read
  • Debbie: I'm with miracarroll--it's your story, so create however you want. Leave the rest of us wondering which of the (mis)adventures are real, which might b
  • miracarroll: Marti, surely the people in your life are wise enough to know (especially after you say it) that you're a writer and in fiction, everything is fair ga
%d bloggers like this: