Willie Mays has always been my favorite baseball player. He could hit for average and power, steal bases, catch every ball that came his way in centerfield, and throw like no one else. He loved playing baseball and he played with the childhood joy that was forever captured in his immortal nickname: The “Say Hey Kid.” The actress Tallulah Bankhead said, “There have been only two geniuses in the world — Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.”

In fact, it was said of Mays that the only thing he could not do on a baseball diamond was stay young forever.

Willie, you see, played too long after his skills had declined and the joy was harder to find. Those last years were not kind.

We’re all the young Willie Mays early in life, believing we can chase down fly balls forever. Yet when one has to make a decision to let go of a place in the world supported by long-held beliefs, identities, or expectations — perhaps even something you cherish and love — there can be a big difference between understanding what’s necessary intellectually and owning that choice through emotional acceptance. Owning and even embracing the realization that our time here is limited, unpredictable, and sacred is more difficult. The more awareness we can bring to this, the more it will support us to live well.

“The paradoxical reward for accepting reality’s constraints,” Oliver Burkeman notes, “is that they no longer feel so constraining. The sooner we accept that fact, “the sooner we can live the only life we have more fully.”

Retirement — as an active ballplayer for those so fortunate or at some point in a more traditional career for the rest of us — is the classic head/heart decision.

We all face these types of choices. It can take months or years after we’ve crossed the intellectual threshold to finally accept those decisions emotionally. Yet personally, only then do I have the opportunity to discover something better. It is the classic “when one door closes, another opens” situation.

What looks like a barrier is often a catalyst in disguise.

When I’ve made a choice but haven’t fully owned it, life seems out-of-whack. But dropping an identity without a real sense of where the new path may lead is seriously scary stuff. The author Elizabeth Marro tells how two years passed between the decision not to have more children and publicly admitting that she was letting go of that path in order to become a writer. She owned her decision only when she told a colleague “I am going to try to write. I am going to use all the energy I would put into mothering a human being into growing another side of myself.” She finally realized that she “had energy, experience, intelligence and opportunity to try things. Be things. Grow.”

Letting go emotionally places certain hopes and dreams out of our lives, probably forever. We are also relinquishing some measure of control. But seriously, how much in life do we really control anyway? And how might we live happily with that uncontrollability?

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When it came to retirement, my father taught us not to be defined by our jobs. He was proud of his career as a TVA engineer, yet he retired in his early 60s and easily moved on. Tom Brown enjoyed life. Every day was a new day.

After more than four decades, I decided 2019 was my year to follow Dad’s example. It was a scary decision and involved letting go not just of the perception of control but of dreams. So I hedged my bets, described the step as “not quite” retirement, and took a gap year.

Pandemics hit when you have other plans. Life became surreal, overwhelming, and lonely. Writing, consulting, and an initial foray as a heritage tour lecturer brought satisfaction. I found I enjoyed the latter experience, especially the research and crafting of stories that fellow travelers would find of interest. A renewed commitment to reading outside my comfort zone introduced me to indigenous writing, fungal networks, immigrant perspectives, awe, beavers, liberation theology, and so much more.

Yet I still self-described as “semi-retired.” Being employed somehow remained at the core of my existence. I was very happy in my retirement but perhaps hadn’t fully owned this new life.

Ironically it was only at a recent retirement party that I took the plunge, telling friends my life consisted of exploring the world I’d missed during the decades I was a busy nonprofit executive. Books, travel, conversations, essays, and lectures helped me discover new appreciation for the diversity and wonder around me. Unwrapping and sharing those discoveries with others brought me joy. Unsurprisingly, I often found myself working in the rich stew of our messy, often misunderstood, increasingly weaponized, yet always fascinating history.

Mary Oliver’s recommendation to writers — “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” — had become my North Star.

It is the fortunate who realize the incredible amount we learn “between our birthday and our last day.” Some never lose their childhood curiosity. I’m reclaiming mine.

When she steps out gently from the busyness of life to engage the world through curiosity and wonder, Satya Robyn also stops struggling. She floats as in a river, embracing the liminality.

The unpredictability is how I learn. The uncontrollability is how my heart is stretched open. Not dodging things means I end up bashing into joy.

No longer semi-retired, I have a new life description: I am bashing into joy. I’m discovering new worlds while diving deeper into things I love. The sum of traditions, memories, myths, and associations connecting people and place over time — history’s soul — remains utterly fascinating. I find joy in sharing these personal and collective explorations in essays and lectures.

Letting go in retirement, relationships, and with long-held expectations can involve disappearance along with a sense of transience and fragility. Disappearance, Kathryn Schulz writes, reminds us to notice, transience to cherish, fragility to defend. “We are here to keep watch, not to keep.”

Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

When we let go we find there truly is more to come…

DJB

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Door photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash. Sign photo by DJB.