What Lies Ahead

60: (January 2023)

I turned 65 earlier this month. That’s a big number! I’m glad I’ve made it this far. My father wasn’t as lucky; he didn’t make it past 57. So I am acutely grateful to have arrived at such a landmark age — and dutifully signed up for Medicare with a smile on my face.

I find the process of aging to be fascinating. I enjoy growing older – the vantage point is spectacular! I get to look back on decades of practice at being alive, of trial and error, and logging in myriad life experiences. The decades have been filled with music and gardens, motherhood, a varied career, and all the people who have enriched my life. It’s a beautiful treasure chest I can dip into at will.

At this age, it also feels satisfying to basically know who I am, although there is still plenty more to become, to develop and grow. It feels luxurious to be able to examine how all the threads in my personal tapestry have combined to form my life up to now, and how they might weave a more complex design with each passing year.

Sixty-five is a satisfying age to be, yet being 65 also comes with a deeper realization that my time on earth is not infinite. I’d be foolish not to be aware of the fact that the time in front of me is brief compared to what is in the rear-view mirror. But that only makes the future more exciting, because the stakes are higher at making every day count. 

There might very well be health issues in the years ahead, as well as the loss of loved ones. Undoubtedly, as with all phases of life, there will be no shortage of challenges to face, along with times to cherish. That said, maybe I’ll live to be 100, which would mean 35 more years to experience new things and figure out better ways to give back to the world. I’ve always loved this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived — that is to have succeeded.”

No time to waste.

40: (January 2003)

Sometimes life feels so heavy that it makes my soul yearn for its source. It’s time like that when I long to experience the sweetness of innocence again. I want to see the world fresh, experiencing each day as something totally new, full of potential surprise and delight.

I want to see the good in people, in everyone. I want to be able to embrace those who hurt me, those who hurt others. I want to find that kind of love, cultivate that kind of heart and compassion. I want to not only see God in the face of a newborn baby, but also in the faces of all the everyday people in the world—the friend, the neighbor, the old, the downtrodden, the enemy. It is always there, although sometimes it takes greater love to unmask it.

In a world that also contains so much pain and loss, I want to find beauty. To revel in the sounds of music in the air, in my bones, and in my breath. I want to appreciate the dance of sun with shadow playing with the leafless branches outside my window, to see the miraculous in the life that bursts from ashes, in the flowers that await birth under the snow in my yard.

I want to trust in life, that it is as it should be. To recognize the divine sense of humor in my puppy’s daily antics, which make me laugh out loud. To retain my own sense of humor when I look at our frailties as humans, the same way I laugh when my dog steals a candy cane and takes it to his crate. I want to love people and myself despite our weaknesses. To be able to forgive transgressions and not hold on to past hurts as if they were belongings that needed safekeeping.

I want to mourn with the world when it suffers and to help heal those things that need healing. To accept change and to understand its nature.

I want to discover, ever deeper, the spirit within that lights the lamp of my soul and to be grateful for life itself, approaching each day as a gift.

Oh, to be human. 

60-40:

There are days when it’s simply harder not to feel the weight of the world. But those days inevitably pass. The world and all of its problems — and all of its beauty — will always be there. How we respond to it is a daily choice. 

If only we could just love each other, forgive each other, and respect everyone we share this planet with, including all forms of life and the earth itself. That would be a lovely future, a dream worth dreaming. With each new day, we could choose to create that reality and do just a little good, one small intention, one small action at a time.