next big step

Because we live in America we have life events that are pretty much the same for most of us.  I was younger than 5 years and watching my brother and sisters and my friends' older siblings going off to real school.  Since I had no idea what school was about I was excited about one day turning the big 05 and going to school with them.  Of course I hated it when I got there.  I quickly learned that a good student is a person who obeys when ordered to sit down and shut up.  The goal was greater than the reward.

After reaching 05 the next big excitement was getting old enough to be a scout.  I was a cub scout and then later a boy scout and those were fabulous times of life for me.  While there in scoutland I learned many things.  I learned to smoke and to drink and I learned that every kid in the world was having sex except for me. I learned that the next big step would have to be the teens.  Eleven and twelve just didn't sound good.  You told people almost apologetically, how old your were.  That you weren't a teen.  In the Teens you are finally able to sing your age instead of flatly stating it. 

So then of course.  The next big step.  The American Teen Dream.  Sixteen.
We counted the days.  We daydreamed the ways.  We excited with our friends and parents and pets about that big day when we would turn sixteen.  That day when we would be allowed to scare the crap out of our parents and anyone else who sees us on the road behind the wheel.  That day when we would finally have a place to sit and text.  That day gives permission to nearly one percent of us to soon find a stupid way to end our lives and the lives of other people we don't even know.

After sixteen some of us found excitement in the age of eighteen.  In some places you can buy beer at eighteen.  You can run off and get killed for questionable political reasons.  You can do some, mostly limited, adult things at eighteen.  Many of us graduated high school and realized what a fine waste of time that was.

The huge American Next Big Step is the big 21.
Twenty one is real.  That's when you (and only you) finally realize that you are an adult.  Most folks older than 21 realize what a kid you still are at that age.  Most folks 21 and under think just the opposite.  Twenty one is till the age of being a kid.  But twenty one in America is a huge next big step.  For some reason twenty one says you've made it.

The next big steps vary for many.  Twenty five was important to me.  I felt I was finally a real adult.  I realized that I was finally a quarter century old.  Both of those realizations really did hurt.

After twenty one though, the next big step changes from age to events.  Graduating college, getting married, becoming a true professional, getting in and then out of the military.  All of these events and more like them are achieved by working toward and looking ahead to, the accomplishment.  Hitting the milestone.  Once again, something to look forward to.  A big event to arrive at.

I've hit all those milestones in my life.  They are wonderful life points.  They are fine to look ahead to and then to remember.  And now I've reached that point in my life where that all important Next Big Event has finally risen to be aspired to.  I've reached the biggest Next Big Event so far.  Retirement.  I've finally retired.  I didn't die before it happened.  I didn't get fired.  I retired.  What a wonderful Big Event to arrive at.

And now that I'm finally relaxing into this retirement thing and I'm finally learning to hit a sort of cruise control of it.  I can now look at life once again and anticipate, once again, the Next Big Event.  What will it be this time?

Oh.

Ooooh.

Uh. 

Oh.