One Thing or Another: 2020 Vision

By Mark McNease

It’s always One Thing or Another… a lighthearted look at aging, life, and the absurdities of it all.

Two months into a new year and this one feels different. Depending on your preferred echo chamber, America is either experiencing a renaissance of greatness restored by the last presidential election, or crumbling into a sinkhole of authoritarian despair. The earth is slowly catching fire while the ice caps melt, or it’s all a conspiracy to make us vote for liberals. The extremes are increasingly extreme, and now, as we hurtle toward an election many people are declaring the most significant in their lifetimes, it’s all too much, like a hangover breakfast at a diner after a party you never wanted to attend. We live under sustained assault by social media and a news cycle that stopped knowing how to shut off back when the Indian head ceased displaying on our TV screens from midnight till 6:00 a.m.

2020 promises several milestones for me. I’ll be 62 in October, a magic number insofar as it means I can start collecting Social Security. And I’m going to. I’ve heard the pros and cons of taking it early or waiting, and I’ve made my decision. It will keep me from draining my retirement accounts in an effort to make it to ‘full retirement’ age, by which time the government hopes I’m dead. The sooner I see those deposits in my checking account, the better.

I’ll also be another year closer to Medicare. What does it say about life in America that your best route of escape from the workforce is old age? I will most likely work part-time even after I retire, which changes the definition of retirement. What it really means for me is retiring from full-time work, something I and many people my age only do for the health insurance. That’s why I’m there. The job provides insurance coverage for me and my husband, and were it not for that I would certainly not be roasting and frying chickens at a grocery store. I would work a cash register, or sell tickets at a movie theater or scones at a coffee shop. Anything but break my back and cripple my hands to secure medical care for the next three-and-a-half years.

2020 is also the year in which voters will decide which direction we want this country to go in. My personal preference is a conservative one: conserving our institutions, returning our law enforcement and the rule of law to their rightful places in our collective consciousness, and a necessary respect for the form of government, however flawed, our founders tried to create for us. If I never saw another tweet or heard another name-calling from the Oval Office, it would be fine with me. I don’t have my hopes up.

We tend to see each year as somehow momentous, with opportunities for change, renewal and adventure that we did not experience the year before. It’s the possibility of adventure that has always kept me going, even as a kid. Sometimes the world seemed bleak, the future dark and ominous, but there was always a saving curiosity: what will my life be like a year from now? I attribute that curiosity, that anticipation of the unexpected, along with a sometimes weary sense of humor, for the fact I’m still alive. And honestly, I can’t wait to see what the world we inhabit is like next year. One thing I’m sure of, it won’t be boring.

Mark McNease is the author of nine novels, two short story collections and miscellaneous fiction. He was the co-creator of the Emmy and Telly winning children’s program Into the Outdoors, and he currently hosts the One Thing or Another Podcast