The most interesting conversations often take place moments before a yoga class starts. Everyone is hanging out, enjoying lying over a bolster, tossing their legs up a wall, looping their feet in a strap – and they’re so very happy they were able to duck out of their day long enough to get to yoga.
If you don’t do yoga, that whole description may sound weird, but read on – this applies to you too.
As I strolled into a late Friday afternoon class, Beth and Tom, a couple I know casually, were already there, a full 15 minutes early. Last time I saw them, they had shared with me that they were lucky enough to have retired young and were spending six months in Crested Butte, skiing, snowshoeing and doing yoga.
“We feel like we’ve died and gone to heaven.”
As usual, they were smiling, stretching and glowing after a day of some kind of snow based activity, I’m sure.
“When I grow up, I want to be the two of you,” I said, recalling our previous conversation.
“The longer we’re retired, the younger (or better) we feel,” Tom replied through a big grin. (Something like that. I was into a deep forward fold by then so I can’t be completely sure.)
We all had a chuckle when a man with a Scottish brogue named Evan, chimed in with:
“You never grow up until you figure out what you want to do with your life.”
He said this with such clarity, such conviction (perhaps it was the accent). As though it was a fate worse than death to have figured out what you want to do with your life, therefore succumbing to that awful fate of growing up.
I realized that if that’s the definition, then I don’t ever want to grow up. I want to continue exploring new places and ways to live, learning, trying and succeeding at some things and “failing” at others. I want to keep trying to figure it out so I’m never, ever done.
What do you want to do so that you never have to grow up? Take tap dancing lessons? Become a radio talk show host? Immerse in a foreign culture? Move to a new city? Rummage garage sales and junk yards seeking hidden treasures and stoking your creative fire?
I want to be like Beth and Tom. And Evan. I want to live life’s journey without the rules or prescribed path. Even if (especially if) other people look at me cross-eyed.