We’re all familiar with what happens in the third act of a really good mystery: the villain dies and the good guy is vindicated, and all is set right for the rest of eternity. It’s in this critical third act there is a small but very vibrant window of opportunity to cash in a lifetime’s collection of choices – and float effortlessly towards the sunset.
If we’re lucky, the third act is full of people we love and health to begin new adventures. The third act can be inspiring and intentional if luck allows us freedom from obligations we have honored in act two. This third act my husband and I begin today will be interesting, to say the least, because we are so very different. He is a careful, thoughtful planner. I am free-spirited. He has thought about “tomorrow” long before it occurred to me it was even happening. He even recently referred to me as a “kamikaze pilot”!
The one thing that we share that I suspect will be our third act glue? We both love surprises. I have driven professors and bosses to the brink of insanity with my “wild unpredictability.” My husband, though not personally unpredictable, cherishes and savors a surprise more than any human I know. So that will be our meeting place in this third act: finding joy together in the remaining mysteries life offers.
I have observed so many versions of third acts that I hope I won’t waste mine overthinking things. I hope I will answer whatever calls that come for joy, playfulness, creativity and meaning. I hope I don’t become “cemented” to my chair and routine. This is the challenge of maintaining that kamizaze spirit – the word translates in Japanese to “Divine Wind.” I’m here for it.
I forgot to mention magic. Hoping for lots more third act magic. For now, I am content sipping coffee and getting lost in the magical lights my “careful planner” unexpectedly sprang for.
Between my finger
And my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
Seamus Heaney
Cheeky Street 