I had an entire first draft written, and I just trashcanned the whole thing. So THIS is what you’re going to be like, 2021? I guess manifestos are more challenging to write than the standard New Year’s resolutions, eh? And yes. Manifesto. After 2020, I felt like this had to be something big.
Mary Oliver asks at the end of her poem, “The Summer Day”, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — and that’s where I start my 2021 manifesto. Because life is short and the time is now.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
The Summer Day (Mary oliver)
With your one wild and precious life?
Even though the urge is there, I’m not up and retiring quite yet. But I’m ready to start living as much of that life as possible. It’s easy to put it off, thinking that I’ve got enough on my plate with simply working a full-time job, but now’s the time to start testing out my dreams, slipping on parts of retired life and see whether they’re worth keeping.
I always imagine retired life being full of writing and reading and photography and learning new technologies. Not only do these provide me with a creative outlet, but they force my brain to stay agile and keep young (I imagine that watching politics on TV or doom-scrolling Facebook don’t have quite the same effect). That sparks in me a renewed drive to do more of these things to keep all my little brain neurons firing and working hard: I’m signed up for two different writing workshops starting this month (it’s possible that I’m being overly ambitious) and I want to start weaning myself off my phone as my main camera, becoming more intimately acquainted with my DSLR and learning Lightroom and Photoshop to edit those photos. I want the discipline of working towards being an expert in things I already do and the joy and frustration of being an absolute beginner with other skills.
[Non-sequitur: I’d also like to stuff so much knowledge in my head that it physically becomes bigger so I can wear normal-sized hats instead of always having to shop in the kids section (perhaps a pipe dream, but hey, it’s my retirement and I can dream, right?)]
Of course, it goes without saying that my retirement will be filled with traveling and hiking and seeing all the places (though, if I actually went without saying it, this wouldn’t be much of an essay, now, would it?). Vacations will be a part of creating a retirement-like traveling life, but I’m also going to try to negotiate a work-from-home gig where my home is somewhere in the mountains. Drive somewhere, settle in, and then stay for a month or two or three. Spend my afternoons hiking. Do longer explorations on the weekends. Find out how much I like being out on my own, since retirement will largely be just me and the mountains with only occasional visitors. I’ll be trying on a shorter version of retired traveling life while still getting a paycheck. Is it a compromise? Of course. But is it also kind of like having my cake and hiking with it, too? Without a doubt.
And since keeping my job will tie me to my home for a good chunk of the year, I’m going to nurture my adventurous spirit by finding new places to hike within a few hours drive and start making road trips. Like I mentioned in my 2020 retrospective post, I was surprised when I realized how much I enjoyed getting in the car and driving, so I might as well take advantage of this. While Illinois isn’t known for it’s mountains <insert eye roll here>, there are still state parks and other scenic areas to explore that are new to me.
With my intellectual and physical retirement needs addressed, all that’s left is my mental state <insert joke here about long walks down short piers or being a few cards short of a full deck>. Doing good things for my mental and emotional life is more of a continuation and deepening of practices I already keep rather than bringing in entirely new ideas. Meditation and keeping a gratitude journal, once I have the time of a retired person, will take on a bigger role in my life, so why not start now?
Meditation has already immeasurably improved my life — a more-often sense of calm, the ability to put a breath in between a situation and my reaction to it — I think it’s made me a better human and a better friend. And even if it hasn’t (perhaps I’m not the best judge of whether I’m a better human or not?), it’s made me happier in a concrete way. And if 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that I’m blessed beyond anything I’ve earned. So many are struggling due to the pandemic and the effects on the economy, and will continue to struggle for years to come, and I’ve been largely shielded from the worst of it. I have so much to be grateful for and need to find ways to pay that forward as well.
And so, what do I plan to do with my one wild and precious life? I want to be creative and learn all the things and see all the places and hike all the mountains and find new ways to be mindful and grateful. Restructuring my life, purposefully bringing in the pieces that I want to build my future with, starts now. Remember always, time is short. Do what you love now.
