Staring down 60

It's 1:30pm on a Sunday. George has been gone for 4 days now keeping watch with family during Uncle Joe's last days on the planet. The boys have been gold, of course, and the house has been unbelievably quiet. Kaileb is visiting with Erin today while she is temporarily living with us, so the house has come loudly to life. After a little playtime with him, I'm hiding in the bedroom with my thoughts.

I'm tired. Every day at this time, my small quantity of energy fails me and my back hurts too much to walk or even sit in my office chair. I only have two choices: spend the day in bed too tired to even open my eyelids to watch TV or take my pain meds for my back and allow this to conjure enough pain-free energy for me to participate in life for another day. So I took my pill and type while I feel my body come back to a little life.

I'm seeing a snapshot of one of my possible futures. A very quiet house and just me (the boys don't count because they RARELY leave their rooms) ....and maybe life without George. That life is sometimes wonderfully solitary. I have time to just be with my own thoughts. And then I realize how much he is my best friend and how blessed I am that we are at this lovely, comfortable part of our marriage and I am glad he is coming home soon and I am going to enjoy it as long as we have it together.

I have felt a real shift since I heard the news in July that I have another slipping vertebra (which also feels unstable, which bodes worse) and the knowledge that I have less than a month until I turn 60.

The Frantic Fifties are gone.

I had a great and crazy decade. 

My boys made it through homeschool, private school and public high school.

Danny has started college and Ben has been accepted to his.

I think my girls have had all their kids so my 4 oldest grandchildren are here and I know they love me.

My youngest daughter changed her name, moved away and forbids me to see her daughters. I grieved but I know my granddaughters love me and I hope I am still here when they can see me again.

I retooled my skills, started a new career - but after 6 years I am now down to 20 hrs/week. From my back pain and my fatigue, I know my working days are coming to an end.

But while life was moving and children were growing, I took the last grasp at life that I could by

Learning the flute after an original three week attempt 50 years ago in 4th grade. 

Trying ballroom dancing with the best husband ever and thinking it was going finally to be my dance thing after I stopped ballet 40 years ago...until the back betrayed me again.

Taking up painting, for the first time ever, and loving it...and understanding that I never realized how good a painter my mom was. This is unexpected and soul fulfilling and I think where life is leading me...if I'll listen.

So I've had a good run at taking my second chances. I thought I might have a shot at that women "who is the best shape of her life!" thing after 50...but that's not going to be me. 

I feel my life calming down when I accept that. I do not feel the little kid in me anymore. I have lived a very busy and fulfilling life but it's time to wind down. But I don't mean this in an "end of life" way. I mean that I feel that the way I will live my life from now on will be different. I will not be trying to conquer new things or new places or new challenges anymore. I have enough of them to last me for a life time.

I feel like it is time to embrace what I already have. What I already am. To love it, and appreciate it and nurture it. I feel a contracting of my world from trying to include everything I might miss - into not needing anything more than I already have and loving it more.

I don't know where the next decade will take me, but I know I will go there more slowly. Less helter skelter into new adventures. I will walk deliberately and gratefully into these years. And when I am done, I will be 70 and retired and living who knows where and who knows how. I try not to think about the fact that my mom didn't make it to her 70th birthday. That is the only thought that really terrifies me.

It is a daunting thought. I am trying not to be scared but calm and brave.

Well anyway, here's to the Scary Sixties to come.