Life’s Decades - The Sixth 10 Years

Today I am focused on the sixth decade of life. For me - it was mostly in the 2000s and included the melded joys of career transitioning to post career and the growing independence of my daughter.

My sixth decade started with my daughter still in high school. The family enjoyed vacations - trying to see as many states as possible before she graduated. After she got her learner’s permit for driving, we made a big loop road trip from Maryland to Chicago. She handled a driving experience I had never encountered: a blown out tire on the freeway. I suppose a child learning to drive is a ‘white knuckle’ time for most parents. The only technology that might change the scenario in the future would be self-driving cars.

Visits to college campuses with my daughter were a vicarious treat. Being part of her decision making process helped my husband and I realize just how ready she was to be independent - not financially but in the way she took ownership for decisions about her future. She applied to 4 colleges and was accepted to all 4 - and went off to Cornell.

Some parents may suffer from ‘empty nest syndrome’ but I didn’t. I was still too busy with work and my daughter called us frequently enough (using time when she was walking some distance on campus) that we knew quite a few details about her college life. The advent of cell phones (and ‘plans’ that have unlimited minutes) have made a huge difference for families that want to communicate via telephone. Long distance used to be an expensive luxury. Now easy and inexpensive telephone calls are transitioning from a luxury (a ‘want’) to a need; it is coming close to being part of basic infrastructure in the developed world. They continued past her graduation from Cornell.

Pretty soon my daughter established a relationship with the young man she would marry before the end of my sixth decade. They were in the same dorm building and then apartment. When it came time for graduate school applications - they both applied to some of the same schools and decided to go to University of Arizona. As soon as they were financially independent (with graduate student funding), they got married. It seems that my daughter’s experience finding a life partner was very similar to my own; it happened early and marriage became the obvious choice very quickly.

Shortly after my daughter become financially independent it because obvious that I could retire and my husband phase down on his workload too. We both rekindled interests we’d left behind in our 20s: biology for me and astronomy for him. It took me a year to settle on some volunteer activities that were focused on areas I where I wanted to make a tangible difference in my community: Neighbor Ride to provide transportation to senior citizens and environmental education offered to students by the Howard Country Conservancy. I also realized just how much I enjoy being a student; the advent of Coursera was perfect for me.