Past It.

By Jaime O'Neill

Three men are seated at the table next to me in one of those serve-yourself-continental-breakfast rooms of the kind found in most airport hotels. When the oldest of the three—a man nearing retirement age—excuses himself to go the men's room, the two younger guys exchange snide comments about their absent colleague.

"He's past it," one of them sneers, though when the older man returns, they smile at him deferentially.

It is a small moment, but the words return to memory several times that day because I, too, am "past it." As a recent retiree, I am past lots of things that used to sully my days.

I'm past the necessity of having to go out and scuffle with people who are often insincere in their dealings with other people.

I am past having to attend stultifying meetings conducted mostly so other people can justify their jobs.

I am past worrying about whether someone is going to judge me about the way I am dressed, the way I speak, or the ideas I come up with.

I am past having my future determined by other people's idle opinions of me.

I'm past needing to listen to the inane opinions of workplace "superiors." Generally speaking, I'm past the idea of superiors entirely, having seen enough of people in positions of authority to disabuse me of the idea that positions confer substantive superiority on anyone.

With a modest though dependable retirement income, I am past all fear of alienating someone who could end my employment, or put a negative rap on my abilities and thus stifle my aspirations for new employment.

Never again will I face a job interview in which other people sit in judgment, determining from their secure positions just how adequate I might be for the work they need done. And I'm past having to scour the want ads for work.

I'm past the need to make nice to people I don't want to see, and I'm past the need to hasten to work on days when I'm not feeling well. I am also past those awkward moments on the phone, calling in sick, with the certain feeling that the person taking my call assumes that I'm malingering.

I still have a functioning libido, thank you very much, but my sex drive is now on cruise control, and no longer likely to get me in trouble. I do not suffer from any of the ailments lumped under the heading of "erectile dysfunction," and that includes those dysfunctions that proved so embarrassing back when I was an adolescent and had to deal with an oversupply of functionality.

I'm past worries about how my life might turn out, or how I will turn out, or what degree of success I'm going to have.

I'm past giving thought to the size or price of the home I own, or if the number of square feet under my roof is more or less than the number of square feet anyone else lives under, or makes mortgage payments on.

I'm also past worrying about style, or about the kind of statement my car makes, just so long as it gets me where I'm going. I'm past concerning myself with the thousand things I was told I needed to worry about if I was going to be accepted in polite or impolite society. 

Most of all, I'm past the time when I lacked the time to pause before a glorious sunset, to dawdle over breakfast, or to linger while I listened to a beautiful song. I'm past much of what worried me and most of what hurried me, and it feels a lot like the wisdom I was told I'd have if I was granted the years necessary to get past it in the first place.

Writer-ex-professor Jaime O'Neill lives in Magalia, California.