More Plans
The most recent phases of my life, the illness and death of a loved one, came to me with preset standards, relatively easy to follow. I brought some of myself to the situations, of course, but choices were limited. This new phase, this passing into my ninth decade, is less clearly defined, because basically it’s just me growing old and deciding how I want to do it.
First of all, that feels lucky. Secondly, it feels normal and that’s a blessing. This has all the appearances of a simple life change, which could have gone unnoticed, except I did and decided to go into it with something approaching a plan. Part of the plan involves looking around at me and my surroundings to see if there’s anything I’d like to change or needs changing. It’s easy to think you’ve got a handle on life only to find you’re in a rut as deep as a canyon. If I am, I want to poke my head over the walls and look around.
Personally, what I enjoy discovering are interior changes, things I can do to brighten my outlook or give me a handle on something previously eluding me. Some of my past discoveries were seismic, at least to me. So, I’ll be interested to see what I discover. It may well be that I simply decide to spend my remaining days doing things like watching the morning light play over the stones of my fireplace and quietly reveling in the transitory beauty of it all. I’ll just have to see.