The Switch

The first half of a person's life is spent in walking into rooms and turning on lights, personally and professionally.  You flick the switch and either take a quick glance, or walk in to check things out.  If it doesn't appeal, you quickly move on to the next room. 

If the room appeals to you, you stay a while, making the room feel more like you. You handle, manage, arrange, rearrange and remodel, often adding more rooms, closets, and drawers. There is a constant flow of traffic - always someone coming and going.  Some visitors are welcomed and cherished.  You're sad when it's time for them to go.  Other visitors are a pain in the neck, and you breathe a sigh of relief when they have moved on. Sometimes, others (voyeurs) poke their heads in and offer unsolicited opinions, criticisms, and advice. They never enter, only stand at the doorway. If you respect the person, you take the words into consideration.  If you don't respect the person, you ponder the suggestions, keep what's helpful, dismiss what isn't. . .and change the code on the door.

Somewhere along the line, there is a shift. There is always a shift, and that shift signals that it's time to move on.  Sometimes, it's your idea, and sometimes, it's not.  It is far more satisfactory when an inner voice tells you it's time to move on; if someone else delivers that message, it can lead to anger, and bitterness is generally not far behind. Either way, time is standing at the doorway, tapping on his watch, an eyebrow raised.

Thus, the second half of life becomes a series of walking in and out of rooms and turning off lights.  Sometimes, those lights are in rooms with dreams you once had as a kid. It's not that you can't achieve them, but the likelihood or pressing desire to accomplish them is no longer there. Sometimes, those lights are in rooms where you once played with your own kids, the memories and their laughter are still bouncing off the walls. The time has come and gone.  Sometimes, those lights are in rooms where once a career thrived. Click, flick, click.  

And just about the time it starts to feel as though you're losing more than you're gaining, you walk into a room that feels like a Goldilocks room - just right, again.  It appeals to you. You see hobbies you always wanted to pursue but never had time to. You see the stacks of books that have been gathering dust on your bedside table. You see friends from the past that were lost in the pursuit of the holy grail - raising healthy kids.  You see tickets on a table, waiting to whisk you to places you never had the time, or money, to visit.  

And then there is a door in that room that is opened just a crack. The light is already on; it feels as though someone has been waiting for you.  As you pull open the door, you see the greatest joys and rewards. . .

And the contents of that room is different for everyone, and it may be different by the day.  

The point is that the room exists.  It's real. In fact, that room has been there all along.  It has been there everyday, even though the contents of the room has varied.

In reflecting, I realize that I have wasted too much time lingering too long in some rooms, seeking a place in rooms where I didn't belong, trying to make repairs in rooms where I didn't cause damage, and spending too much time in rooms that were draining versus energizing, simply because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. And maybe it was what I needed to do - for that time and for that place, but certainly not forever. For most of my life, I have believed longevity, loyalty, and commitment to the rooms to be badges of pride. Now I’m not so sure about that.

When it comes to life and life events, Mike always says this: "Sunrise. Sunset." Light switches are life.  There is a time to turn them on.  There is a time to turn them off.  Rather than look at it from the standpoint of losing and gaining, it is much better, and infinitely more satisfactory, to look at it as a process of moving through.  Turning off a light and leaving one room means turning on a new one and moving into something new and different, not better or worse. 

Even though the process of moving through began a while ago, it’s only recently that I have begun to pay attention. That said, I would ask that you please excuse me.  There are a few rooms that need my attention, in one of which are three little people, soon-to-be five, waiting for me.