John S. Sommer Counseling
  • Home
  • Qualifications
  • Location
  • Photos & Essays
    • Photos
    • Essays >
      • The Entertainment Director
      • Fathers and Daughters
      • Reframing: The Art of Looking Deeper
      • The Incredible Absorbing Man
      • The Little Old Man Stuck in My Head
      • The Lobster Tale
  • Links
  • Contact Us
  • Blog
  • Sound Bites

All persons and situations reflected in these writings are pretty much fictional, based on generalizations over the course of many years of counseling. Any actual events or settings have been changed, including names and other details, to protect client confidentiality.



Too Old?

11/1/2018

0 Comments

 
As “Hey John” has morphed into a gen-u-wine counseling column rather than just a weenie weight “advice column”, should the situation arise that the email requests are blank (like this week), I will present you with hopefully significant events to contemplate. This one has added to my existence. I hope you find it useful. 
 
Part One: The Visit
 
I walked in the door, having completed my eight-hour shift as a bartender, and my hour commute back to San Jose. I was greeted by my eight month pregnant wife and her mom and dad who had journeyed from Austin to come visit us. I was complaining that one of my regular customers, Connie (Conrad) spent his sipping time at the bar to whine about how unbelievably slow AAA was at responding to his flat tire call. When I asked the 45 year old why he didn’t change it himself during his two-and-a-half-hour wait, he responded, “Hell, I’m getting too old to do that”. Too old?! My father-in-law Claude (Nolen) somewhat misunderstood my story and explained to me: “You know, when you are young (I was 23), everything seems possible. But, as you grow older, you begin to realize that your age is a limitation to some dreams. Think of the great college basketball player who dreams of being a pro. Now he’s 35 and he realizes he’s now too old to begin a professional career. Take me for example. I wrote my book for my dissertation many years ago. I have planned on writing a second book ever since. Now in my mid-fifties, it’s too late to begin such a momentous task. It’s a bit of a sad reality coming to grips with the fact one is too old to do something he had dreamt about for so long.” Although it made sense, it was a little depressing to think our time is always running out on our dreams.
 
Part Two: An Interesting Combination Of Events
 
Many years later, our firstborn Justin moved in with his grandparents, Jeanne and Claude in order to limit the costs of attending Austin Community College. We gave Justin our office computer with an old (and difficult to master) word processing program, Bank Street Writer. It took me quite a while to show him how to use it. After his first year at ACC, he got an apartment with a friend and left the old PC at his grandparent’s house. Jeanne began calling me on a regular basis about using the computer, as she had never used one before. To make things more complicated yet, she was getting instructions, one at a time, on how to use Bank Street Writer. She decided to transcribe the thousands of nearly illegible little notes Claude had written over the years into the computer. It was a seemingly an impossible job. Week after week, month after month Jeanne typed and Claude also dictated information he both knew and researched about The Black’s role in the Civil War, Slavery and Reconstruction. He finally exhaustedly submitted his work- and was rejected. He revised it over the next months, submitted it, and was rejected again. He made revisions again, and on June 1, 2001, McFarland Publishing put Claude’s book on the shelves. Although Claude generously gave credit to numerous family members for their assistance, it was his and Jeanne’s very late-in-life completion of a long lost dream. He figured it was out of reach in his mid-fifties, and he proved himself wrong. He was eighty.
 
So the obvious question presents itself: at what point in our lives do we know things are no longer possible? Can we re-start ourselves at fifty? Work at doing something we had previously given up on in our sixties? What about at eighty? Knowing that there is a possibility of achieving old dreams, or for that matter, new dreams regardless of our age is a lesson to be considered as we grow older.



Subscribe to John S. Sommer Counseling - Blog by Email


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Behavioral
    Hey John Advice
    Other Stuff
    Parenting
    Relationships
    Semi Personal

    Picture

    About the Author

    I did NOT like writing stuff in school. However, now that it's voluntary, I like it. I'm still working on that attitude of mine.....

    Subscribe to John's Blog by email:

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner


    Facebook

    Categories

    All
    Behavioral
    Hey John Advice
    Other Stuff
    Parenting
    Relationships
    Semi Personal


    Archives

    January 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015


    All persons and situations reflected in these writings are pretty much fictional, based on generalizations over the course of many years of counseling. Any actual events or settings have been changed, including names and other details, to protect client confidentiality.

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.