A Theory of Thirds

My daddy's theory was that we live our lives in thirds of roughly 25 years each.

The first third, we are learning, absorbing, watching. There's school, school and usually more school and we learn the fundamentals of literacy, social behavior, human dynamics, how to walk upright and be polite, to tell the truth, to manage our interactions. We decide whether we are lovers of cats or dogs and we sort through what will become our passions - music, art, reading, embroidery, sports and so on. We select a general direction to go in then refine it. We experiment with friends, drugs, sexual preference, independence. We learn to drive, clean up our rooms, study, cook, make small repairs. We date and often marry, learn how to be responsible employees and partners, how to mix a martini and not to play with matches. It's a time of forgiveness and far reaching immunity for our mistakes and sins. We get a lot of slack and we take it to the limit - we will only be young once we say, but in truth we believe we'll be young forever.

Real life comes in the second 25 years. Routines, ruts, divorces, over due pay offs. We learn that life is about growing up and that there are rough spots in careers, relationships, families. Earlier choices often come back to haunt us and often there are head on collisions with reality. The growing up we did before seems tame and insignificant as we achieve and struggle, constantly losing and finding our way, settling down and learning to be less selfish, more honest, harder working and more accountable. We discover trade offs and how to balance them, our children surprise, worry, depress and inspire us. We encounter the mortality of those we love and lose and having no other alternative, we keep going. Now and again we have a fleeting moment of peace of mind and we appreciate it more. We open savings accounts and buy bonds, we buy our first house, cram out wallets with credit cards, drink responsibly, save for a rainy day. We learn to love and cherish our friends, share heartbreak and accept pain. We worry more and go to bed earlier. We begin to measure success a little differently and often discover that God is not dead. It's a time when change happens slowly and often goes unnoticed until it defiantly stares us straight in the eyes and we begin to wonder where time, youth and stability are hiding. We learn new words like stress and sacrifice and we start paying attention to politics, world events, interest rates. We have, so we
think, arrived into the world of adulthood with all its trials and rewards.

The last third is an intruder in the night. We don't see or hear it, rather we wake one morning and realize it's there. There's a new language to be learned, the language of the medicine chest. We become addicted to list making, think about volunteering and paying back kindness, re-connect with
past friends. It's a shock to discover that time is finite, that our lives will eventually end as all lives do, that of all the gifts we receive, time is the most precious and the least lasting. We reorganize our priorities, eat more salads and drink more water, learn to value solitude as well as the noise of crowds. Lifelong habits and tastes change or become set in cement, the world goes from the black and white definitions we were sharply committed to and turns a fuzzy shade of gray. We think in terms of seasons and know that it's autumn while we yearn for spring. We find that there's no such thing as one more last chance, that chances never run out as long as we draw another breath. We stop planning the next thing we'll say and begin to listen. Patience comes with less effort and being grateful becomes second nature. We're unexpectedly more aware of the carnival of colors around us every day, overwhelmed by and resigned to the things we've failed to get around to doing, proud of
what we have accomplished. The periodic table of elements remains a mystery but we understand nostalgia, insurance, poverty, tolerance and faith and even have a dim grasp of things like the Dow Jones average. It's a time to revise expectations more toward reality and a time to put things right.

How much of this my daddy actually believed and how much he made up as he went along is not something that I'll ever know. We spent hours discussing and good naturedly arguing about it, it was one of the ways he tried to teach me to think clearly and improve my focus and reasoning. He would routinely take a position he didn't believe in and argue it just as an exercise in mental agility or for the sheer fun of it. He was, among other things, a philosopher with a sense of humor and a gift for satire.