Kingsport Spirit

I shared this on Facebook earlier. It was an outpouring of emotions written spontaneously. I appreciated the response from readers, so I decided I should save it on my blog. Here goes. I’m not soliciting birthday wishes, I’m hoping to capture a moment–past or future– that will be shared by many.

Recently I turned 65. There, I said it. Sigh.

For years, as part of Tennessee’s “Retire Tennessee” initiative, we talked about the “10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day” as a nontraditional economic-development opportunity.

The idea was simple: attract educated, financially secure retirees who could bring income, experience, volunteerism, philanthropy and new energy to a community.

Now I’m one of them.

And, as it turns out, I’m reaching 65 near the crest of that demographic wave. Today it’s closer to 11,300 Americans every day.

It hits differently when you become one of the statistics.

Technically, I’m a Baby Boomer, born in 1961. But I’m also part of what is sometimes called Generation Jones — those of us at the younger end of the Baby Boom whose experiences were often quite different from the Boomers who came before us.

My own family illustrates it pretty well.

My brother was born in 1949. I came along twelve years later in 1961. We were both “Baby Boomers,” but in some ways we grew up in different worlds.

He had a slide rule.

I had an early Texas Instruments calculator.

He was 20 when Woodstock happened. I was eight.

The older Boomers came of age amid Vietnam and the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. Those of us at the younger end came of age more with Watergate, gas lines, inflation, economic uncertainty and double-digit interest rates.

We grew up analog and entered adulthood just as the world began going digital.

I saw that transformation firsthand.

Early in my career at City Hall, they rolled in a single personal computer on a cart — to be shared — with no instructions.

None of us really knew what to do with it. I was told I would have to be the one to figure it out because none of the older employees wanted anything to do with it.

There was just one problem.

I was a geography major. I had no computer training.

We had never heard of a spreadsheet. As far as we were concerned, that was something accountants did.

We certainly weren’t allowed to type our own documents. That was what secretaries were for. A single finished document could take days as drafts went back and forth for typing, corrections and retyping.

Today we write, revise and send something across the world in minutes.

So I learned.

Little did I know that machine on a cart would open up an entirely new world for me.

Eventually, I would oversee Geographic Information Systems, use computers to analyze communities spatially and statistically, and discover an inner data nerd I didn’t even know existed.

More importantly, it transformed the way I think.

Data taught me to look for patterns, test assumptions, ask better questions and sometimes challenge conventional wisdom. GIS taught me that almost everything happens somewhere — and that where something happens can be just as important as what happened.

Maybe that’s one reason I don’t fear artificial intelligence today.

My whole adult life has been about adapting to change.

I watched typewriters give way to word processors, paper maps become GIS, filing cabinets become databases, letters become email, and eventually the telephone become a computer we carry in our pockets.

Every one of those changes disrupted something familiar. They also created possibilities we couldn’t see when they first arrived.

I’ve learned not to assume that new technology will diminish what I know or what I can contribute. Sometimes it becomes the tool that allows you to do things you never imagined.

At 65, I’m still curious enough to want to find out.

But what all those demographic projections never told me was what life might actually feel like when I got here.

They didn’t tell me I might reach this milestone without my parents — or without that older brother who once seemed so far ahead of me in life.

And there are classmates who started this journey alongside me who didn’t get to see 65. People whose names and faces still take me back to classrooms, hallways, ballgames and a time when 65 seemed impossibly far away.

Their absence reminds me that another birthday — especially one like this — isn’t something to take for granted.

My parents always called me on my birthday. It was a tradition. They made a big deal about the day and somehow, no matter how old I became, made me feel cherished.

The feeling was mutual.

There won’t be a call from them today, but I’ll remember those calls.

And I can’t help but smile wondering what they would think knowing their “baby” is now 65 and on Medicare.

At this age, gratitude and loss seem to live a little closer together. You miss the people who aren’t here, appreciate more deeply the people who are, and realize that simply being here to celebrate another year is a blessing.

The statistics also didn’t tell me that by this point our kids would be grown, happily married and fiercely independent — something I admire immensely.

We raised them to build lives of their own, and they did.

There’s something wonderfully humbling about reaching the age when the children you once taught begin teaching you.

I never imagined that one day I’d find myself addressing my own daughter as Dr. Fleming — and being enormously proud to do it.

And my son, whom I once tried to teach about life and faith, is now my Sunday school teacher.

That may be one of the great rewards of parenthood: watching your children become accomplished adults in their own right and realizing you no longer have to lead every step of the way.

Sometimes your job is simply to admire who they became — and be willing to learn from them.

Some parents our age are still trying to get theirs out of the basement.

But family life didn’t become smaller when our children grew up.

It changed.

One of the greatest gifts of this stage of life is having our granddaughters woven into our daily lives.

Not just holidays and birthdays. The ordinary stuff.

Conversations. Laughter. School activities. Watching them grow. Simply being there.

I don’t think I could have understood at 25 or 35 how much those ordinary moments would mean at 65.

And somewhere along the way, friendships changed too.

Cristi and I have a group of friends who have become family — people who have shared enough meals, trips, celebrations, hard days and completely ordinary days with us that the word “friend” doesn’t quite cover it anymore.

One thing you learn with age is that family isn’t only the people you were born to or the people you raised.

Sometimes family is also the people who just keep showing up.

And then there’s Cristi.

She was 19.

I was 24.

We started with practically nothing — two very young people buying a house in 1985 with a mortgage rate around 13%, wondering how in the world we were going to make it.

And now, in a way, it’s just us again.

There’s something beautiful about that.

We’ve been through childbearing and child-rearing, mortgages, careers, college tuition, worries, mistakes, loss, celebrations and more joy than those two young people could possibly have imagined.

It has been a roller coaster at times because life is a roller coaster.

But if I could offer younger couples one piece of advice from this side of 65, it would be this:

Building a life together is worth the work.

There is something incredibly special about eventually looking across the room at the person who remembers all of it — because they lived it with you.

You know what it took to get here.

And now you get to enjoy some of the fruits of all those years of working, sacrificing, raising a family, paying tuition, saving, worrying, laughing, grieving and sticking together.

Early in my career, Cristi and I once celebrated our anniversary by spending the evening at a Kingsport Tomorrow community visioning session.

Romantic, huh?

A colleague had a phrase he often used when thanking people for volunteering. He would thank us for “giving up a night of your life” for whatever cause we were working on.

I never forgot that phrase.

The older I get, the more profound it seems.

Because that’s exactly what time is.

A night of your life.

A Saturday of your life.

A year of your life.

Once it passes, it isn’t coming back.

And none of us is guaranteed tomorrow.

So make those choices intentionally.

Work at something you believe in. Serve causes that mean something to you. Spend time with people you love. Build a life with someone worth building it with. Be present for your children. Cherish the friends who become family.

And if you’re fortunate enough to have grandchildren, soak up the ordinary days with them.

Those ordinary days may turn out to be the extraordinary ones.

Travel. Laugh. Give back. Stay curious. Keep learning.

And don’t be afraid when somebody rolls some unfamiliar new technology into the room and tells you that you’re the one who has to figure it out.

You never know where it might lead.

Most of all, do things you love and believe in — intentionally — because every day you spend is quite literally a day of your life.

Eventually, all those ordinary days become your life.

And that’s also why my faith is so important to me.

The older I get, the more clearly I understand that I did not get here alone.

There were people who loved me, taught me, encouraged me, forgave me, challenged me and walked beside me. And through all of it, God was there too — in the blessings, in the losses, in the uncertainty and in doors I never could have opened for myself.

That gives me peace about whatever comes next.

I don’t know what the years ahead will bring. None of us does.

But I know I didn’t make the journey to 65 alone, and I know I don’t have to face the future alone either.

And after all these years of learning, leading and occasionally thinking I knew a thing or two, I’m still humble enough to sit in Sunday school and let my son be my teacher.

There’s something wonderfully full-circle about that.

For years, 65 was a demographic statistic I used in economic-development presentations.

Today, it’s personal.

I miss some of the people who helped me get here. I think about classmates who should be celebrating with us but aren’t. I’m deeply grateful for the people who are here with me now. And I have a much greater appreciation for just how precious the time between those two points has been.

So yes, today my parents’ “baby” is 65 and on Medicare.

Still learning. Still adapting. Still curious. Still trusting.

And, thankfully, still teachable.

Very grateful to be here.