Future You?

A few weeks ago, my friend Seng and I were talking about older people we know, their lives, what we respect, what their lives will be like when they face death, and how they've affected us, both positively and negatively. Seng then proceeded to speculate what I'll be like at age 55. Honestly, I can't wait to be 55. Women can be so amazing at that age. I hope to have the good fortune to live to 55. I can only imagine the things I could experience in the next 24 years.

The next morning I was watching my principal at work who is 55-60 years old, as the conversation from the night before was fresh in my mind. She has been building landscapes and teaching in NYC for over 30 years and is wildly ambitious, forthright, and dignifying, while strong, feminine, and not easily swayed by fashion or hype. She looks 10 years younger than she is, I think simply because of her high level of concerned social activity. For the first time in my life, I am working with a woman who is a mentor to me.

As most of my close friends know, I can easily be found on a Saturday night watching documentaries on figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt. I'm a nerd. But what an amazingly fabulous woman that few Americans know much about. She died with one of the largest CIA files of any American politician because of her continuously controversial involvement with social activism in the United States. Near the end of her life, after her husband and U.S. president died with his mistress instead of her at his side, she went on to arduously help establish the United Nations. As a friend at work says: nothing is ever created without painstaking labor.

Speaking of labor, there is my mom. A relatively simple woman who has devoted her life to her family, and the success and independence of her 3 female children. Paradoxically, she has some conservative ideas about the roles of women in the world, but at the same time she is deeply angered anytime the femininity of her children is compromised - to the degree that she would become violent if she knew how.

There is an older woman on my nonprofit's board of directors. Her husband was a land developer who died prematurely. She has since devoted her life to philanthropic activity in Omaha as she manages her husbands foundation. She is one of the most vibrant and interesting 60-something women I have ever met and often tells me how lucky she is to live a life where she gets to put money in places that make the world more beautiful.

Back to Seng's question of what I'll be like at age 55? I have some ideas of what I hope to be. How about you? Can you think of people you think are out of this world?