I am forty-eight years old. I have a successful career as an engineer, a happy marriage, three lovely children who are plowing successfully through high school and college, and a peaceful life in suburban Iowa. Having hit this point in my life I find myself asking a question that I naively find unexpected: Now what?

As the busy summer turns into fall, the remaining at-home child’s schedule busy with school pursuits that require little parental involvement, I reached this Friday afternoon home from work without much on my agenda for the weekend. Somehow the weekend’s empty agenda was more pressing for its urgency. I finished not one but two books on Friday afternoon. I watched the Iowa football game. Saturday morning I got up and we went to the Farmers Market. And by 8:30 Saturday morning I was asking the same question, albeit in a more temporary perspective: Now what?

There’s Always Another Book

Because really, my brain can only absorb so many hours of reading in a weekend. And so much televised sports. My beloved next-door neighbor is 96, retired since the 1980s, and a widower these past five years. He is barely mobile now, and his daily activity rotation sounds similar enough to my own suggestions there that it frightens me a bit. Read a book. Surf the web. Watch TV. Sleep. Repeat. I won’t survive 50 years of that. Now what?

Well, one might ask, what were your for-fun interests before you got busy with kids? And that’s a good question. I got married before I was done with college, so I didn’t have a lot of life as a single person where I was figuring that out. And as a married person: I spent a lot of time keeping up with a home, doing church stuff, and playing music. So where does that leave me?

The home stuff has blessedly slowed down some. The house is (finally) paid for; we’ve replaced nearly everything there is that could be replaced on it over the 22 years we’ve owned it, and we hopefully have a few years before the replacements hit round two. And my wife is the one who loves to mow and do landscaping! (I won’t complain on that one.)

Community

Church stuff has been in flux. We left our evangelical world five years ago, and with it most of the heavy church responsibilities (and most of the music - more on that later). We are enjoying our new church, and I am slowly learning the various service roles there. I’m on Vestry, which meets one evening a month; I occasionally serve at the altar during the Sunday service. A few of us are knocking around the idea of a church podcast, which I have volunteered to help with. That could take up a bit more time if it takes off, but as of today it’s no more than some initial interview questions and a pile of production equipment waiting to be employed.

Music

So, then, music. What about music? If there’s one thing I miss the most from my life in evangelicalism, it’s the chance to play and sing music with others. As much as I love my Episcopal church now, the music isn’t the same. I guess I can become the old guy who gets a bunch of expensive gear and finds a few other old guys to play tunes with at lonely venues, but that’s not quite my thing. I have considered trying to join the local theater’s pit band for their musical productions, but I’m nervous whether my work schedule would allow me the necessary flexibility. And so… now what?

Study

My other big love is study and theology. I’ve had people ask me over time if I’ve considered the pastorate or the priesthood. And yeah, I’ve considered it. If I’m being honest I’ve considered it off and on ever since high school. But every pastor and priest I’ve known advises ‘if there’s anything else you can see yourself doing, do it instead’. And by golly I love my engineering work. And while I would love a role that let me study, teach, and preside at the altar, the priesthood comes with a larger, more important set of responsibilities: shepherding a parish through day-to-day life. And I would be terrible at that part. So maybe if I could dedicate years to theological study and become a parish theologian? But as much as I am sure I could fill a need as a priest, I don’t think I’d be good at it. Now what?

Old Dog, New Tricks are Hard

As I near 50 I come to the resigned realization that neither my body nor my brain have the strength or elasticity to chase the dreams of my youth. I will not have a second career as a baseball umpire. As much as I want to learn jazz piano, it will probably never now come to my fingers as natively as the classical and pop harmonies I’ve been playing since childhood. The running I’ve taken up the past few years will help keep me active, but my joints won’t support a push for marathoning. Now what?

I’m certain I’m not the first middle-aged man to hit this age and ask these questions. I don’t see any particular appeal in medicating the mid-life crisis with an expensive sports car. And so I sit here on a Sunday night, writing a blog post that might be more usefully a conversation with my therapist, asking you, my long suffering reader: Now what?