A02: Summer 2024 Directive
Home life:
When I think of “home” my mind first goes to two places: where I grew up and where I live now. My hometown (on the east coast) is “where I’m from” and that sense of myself is tied to my parents and siblings, the house and neighborhood where I spent most of my childhood, and to some extent the region of the country (Mid-Atlantic). At this point in my life, though, (I’m in my 60s), I have very few meaningful ties to that place. My parents are gone, only one of my siblings lives in that area now, and I’m only really in touch with one of my old friends from that area. I retain a bit of loyalty—rooting for the area sports teams, reading the local paper online now and then—but my ties to that place are thin now.
“Home” is also Muncie, a place I’ve lived in for 28 years now. I still don’t quite feel like a local but I do feel like I have a stake in the place. B and I have raised our kids here and I have pursued the largest part of my career here. I have lots of fond feelings about the place. But I do retain a bit of a sense of being an outsider. Some of that may be tied to my stage of life. Retirement looms, and occupies an increasing space in my thoughts. Will we stay here? Go somewhere else? These questions are tied to the question of how much I think of this place as home. Do I want to maintain the ties I have made here or relocate someplace new late in life, where I have to try to make new friends and get to know a new place. There are also practical considerations—money, access to good health care, proximity to our kids, who are now living back east—but a sense that Muncie is home, or if it’s just the place where I’ve worked for nearly 30 years—is a big factor as I look ahead.
“Making a home” conjures up something different. Owning and maintaining a house, in our case a two-story, four-bedroom home on a cul-de-sac that we bought in 2007, is part of what I think of when I think of making a home. Our current house is two big now that just two of us lived there. Since the kids moved out, it’s more space, and more headaches, than are strictly necessary. We’ve held on to it, partly out of inertia, partly to have the space for the kids to come home to visit. I do feel some subtle pressure to maintain this house as home for our kids, even though they are full-grown, self-supporting adults. (This was useful during Covid lockdowns—see my diaries from those days.). It’s a very comfortable space, with lots of room for various activities. I’m writing this in a work/exercise space above our garage. We have a roomy kitchen, a comfortable screened-in porch, a dining room we never use, and 2.5 bathrooms. We have a large yard, with plenty of trees and gardens. The shade is quite pleasant, even when it’s hot. The neighborhood is nice and quiet, which is good for walks. All in all, it’s an easy, relaxing place to live on a day-to-day basis and we’re quite fortunate to have it.
On the other hand the house, yard and gardens are more work than we need. It takes a while to clean the whole place and maintain the outdoor spaces creates a lot of physical labor, especially in the spring and fall. We share duties, although I probably do a bit more outside and B does more inside. B is also the more precise, detailed person with strong opinions about the style and character of the physical qualities of the home, such as flooring, paint colors, and cabinetry. I barely notice those things, which B finds frustrating at times. Over the last couple of years, I’ve found the physical labor involved in all of that more taxing than it once was. We need new floors, a kitchen update, some outside woodwork repairs, and a few other things. The need for these fixes is a little stressful, especially when I think about the cost. We replaced our roof last year, which was incredibly expensive. Increasingly, I’m ready to find a condo where I just pay a monthly fee to take care of all of that.
Of course making a home is, in another sense, about making a family. If we relocated someplace else, but with B and our kids came to visit, that would be home. Any attachment I feel to the physical structure we call home is a product of sharing it with them.
Religious and spiritual practice:
I’m not especially religious and don’t do much in the way of spiritual practices. I was raised Catholic but gradually drifted away from that church. I found myself too frustrated with some parts of its teachings and practices and B was even more skeptical. The final straw was becoming the father of two daughters. The Catholic Church’s position on the role of women in the church just became untenable for me when I thought of raising them in that context. And to be frank, I also just didn’t particularly like going to church services. B and I tried some other church options when the kids were younger, thinking that participating in a community, developing some spiritual practices, and thinking about ethics would be helpful for them, but after a few years nothing stuck for us. I do think we exposed them to enough of religious life that they can choose to participate in a church if they wish.
At this point in my life, I would describe myself as agnostic. I see most faith practices as a way of explaining and accepting things that we cannot otherwise fathom, such as the universe, tragic events, or profoundly good and profoundly horrible human behavior. I respect and appreciate the ways that people make sense of things through faith or through spiritual or meditative practices. I recall an elderly neighbor years ago who spent a great deal of time tending her gardens, which were gorgeous. I asked her why she did it, even when it seemed to be quite challenging as she aged. She said it was how she “talked to God.” I admired that and it has always stuck with me.
I’m not sure I have anything quite like that in my life. There are practices where I find myself relaxing and de-stressing, especially running and walking outdoors. These things calm me and can help me generate positive thoughts and feelings. For many years, I played basketball quite regularly. I once explained to a therapist that I liked to do that because it occupied all of my thoughts when I was doing it; my worries and concerns were forgotten. She said that was my version of meditation. My basketball days are over, sadly, but other physical activities fill some of that void. Still, these things help with a sense of well-being but they don’t constitute the rigorous practice that demands something from me that I should be doing but am not. They don’t orient me toward others, something I nevertheless value for reasons I’m not sure I can explain.
My lack of formal religious faith or spirituality may sound bleak to some people, but it’s not a source of discontent or unease for me, nor is it something I feel needs to change. I am mostly happy with my day-to-day life. There are aspects of religious practice that I miss, especially belonging to a community and the structured encouragement to think about how to live a good life that religion provides, but I belong to other communities and my relationships with family and friends help me think about how to live ethically and in a way that helps others. And if I’m being honest, that orientation comes from the way I was raised, by two strongly religious parents. My hope is we gave our kids a similar foundation, even if we took a different route to getting there.
I do wonder if my beliefs will change as I grow older, if the way I live now will enable me to meet the challenges of aging and facing the end of life. I’m old enough now where there is much more life behind me than ahead of me. I’ve seen others revert to old religious practices when facing the end of their life and I wonder if my current ways of thinking and living will sustain me when those pressures mount. Right now, I’m not expecting that will change, but who knows?