An accidentally preachy bit of rumination, in which I'm not sure if I'm sad or resignedly optimistic
I've been feeling my age this week, I think. Hard to tell, since I've never been any older, and I can't crawl around inside all the other forty-year-old's brains and see how they are really feeling, but there's a somewhat different quality to my current melancholy. And it is melancholy.
I mean, I could be feeling my age and feeling vibrant and powerful and fabulous. That happens. At a wide variety of ages, as far as I can tell. The life is gorgeous and I'm not even thinking about three year old fabulous. The wow, I finally get double digits fabulous. The I'm seventeen and old enough to do what I want and young enough to get bailed out if I screw up and I know it fabulous (though I didn't realize until later that was the I'm super privileged and don't know it fabulous). And I could go on about my twenties and thirties, and times when I felt great...
But I don't feel like it right now.
Right now I've been in a bit of a quiet funk.
Grieving some, and weirded out some.
For one thing, Dad's birthday was Friday, and so that's all fresh again. It's a many-faceted pain, which includes my missing having a living relationship with a specific spectacular person, sympathy and worry for my mom as she adjusts, and fear, about how on earth I might cope if 1cmf dies before me.
And for another thing, another high school friend of mine died this month. He was someone I was definitely friends with then, but who I had not stayed friends with as adults. He pulled away some, for various reasons that I didn't and don't take personally in the slightest, and that was that.
So in the last year, that's two high school friends that have died, both from cancer.
There have also been three others from my social circle from those years, who have also died. One from suicide, one more from cancer, and one, so I understand, from some fast moving infection.
It's weird to think that I've begun to outlive some of my friends. And that I've lived more than half as long as my father did. And more than half as long as either of his parents. And more than half as long as my mother's father. My maternal grandmother lived a bit longer, but, body-wise, I don't think I take after her much.
So, it's not unreasonable for me to feel half way done.
Frankly, I'm happy to make a plan to putter about in the garden and read and visit with people and make lunch for everybody, and write interesting things that people like to read through retirement and past my hundredth birthday. Plans are nice, and they may as well be happy ones.
But when I'm tired, which I've been a lot this month -- I get that way sometimes -- I find myself thinking, "It's OK. Don't have to do this forever. Half way there now." It sounds morbid, but I find it vaguely comforting.
And I've had an interesting punctuation mark, with the move. This time last year, all my friends in NJ were treating me like I was dying. I had a birthday party and it felt like a wake. And, well, I've got smart friends. It was a little like dying. The relationships have changed, even when there's a lot of contact. And so many things are different. So many parts of my life are gone. This spring will bring a rebirth, I know. But for now, I see a lot of loss.
A couple of things I find I'm very grateful for --
(1) Intentional living: I've not been perfect about it, but I know that I got the message by the time I was graduating college, if not before, to choose how to use my time with some care. To know my priorities, and follow them. The reality is, I'm passionate about so many people and possibilities, that I can't ever do it all, and I always miss some really wonderful options; but I know I've made good choices and had a whole lot of joy.
(2) Gratitude itself: I'm glad that I have a tendency, and have had for a long time, of taking stock periodically throughout the day and just being grateful for everything. I don't feel like I took it all for granted. I knew my life was almost too good to be believed. And I just paused and appreciated it, a lot. (The secret here, you know, is that all of our lives are too beautiful to be believed, if you really look at them and think about it.)
So I'm keeping those things up, in my new life. My new today life. Because another thing I tend to do, is accept today, the right now. One of my parenting tricks is to pretend that I've just been handed these children, and I can't change anything about how they've been raised until now, all I can do is be in this day with them.
........
This little bit of writing didn't wrap around my thoughts exactly as I had thought they would, but last week I was thinking that what I would like to do with my LJ right now is to write on some theme or another, once a week. So I guess I'll let this stand. G'night folks.
I mean, I could be feeling my age and feeling vibrant and powerful and fabulous. That happens. At a wide variety of ages, as far as I can tell. The life is gorgeous and I'm not even thinking about three year old fabulous. The wow, I finally get double digits fabulous. The I'm seventeen and old enough to do what I want and young enough to get bailed out if I screw up and I know it fabulous (though I didn't realize until later that was the I'm super privileged and don't know it fabulous). And I could go on about my twenties and thirties, and times when I felt great...
But I don't feel like it right now.
Right now I've been in a bit of a quiet funk.
Grieving some, and weirded out some.
For one thing, Dad's birthday was Friday, and so that's all fresh again. It's a many-faceted pain, which includes my missing having a living relationship with a specific spectacular person, sympathy and worry for my mom as she adjusts, and fear, about how on earth I might cope if 1cmf dies before me.
And for another thing, another high school friend of mine died this month. He was someone I was definitely friends with then, but who I had not stayed friends with as adults. He pulled away some, for various reasons that I didn't and don't take personally in the slightest, and that was that.
So in the last year, that's two high school friends that have died, both from cancer.
There have also been three others from my social circle from those years, who have also died. One from suicide, one more from cancer, and one, so I understand, from some fast moving infection.
It's weird to think that I've begun to outlive some of my friends. And that I've lived more than half as long as my father did. And more than half as long as either of his parents. And more than half as long as my mother's father. My maternal grandmother lived a bit longer, but, body-wise, I don't think I take after her much.
So, it's not unreasonable for me to feel half way done.
Frankly, I'm happy to make a plan to putter about in the garden and read and visit with people and make lunch for everybody, and write interesting things that people like to read through retirement and past my hundredth birthday. Plans are nice, and they may as well be happy ones.
But when I'm tired, which I've been a lot this month -- I get that way sometimes -- I find myself thinking, "It's OK. Don't have to do this forever. Half way there now." It sounds morbid, but I find it vaguely comforting.
And I've had an interesting punctuation mark, with the move. This time last year, all my friends in NJ were treating me like I was dying. I had a birthday party and it felt like a wake. And, well, I've got smart friends. It was a little like dying. The relationships have changed, even when there's a lot of contact. And so many things are different. So many parts of my life are gone. This spring will bring a rebirth, I know. But for now, I see a lot of loss.
A couple of things I find I'm very grateful for --
(1) Intentional living: I've not been perfect about it, but I know that I got the message by the time I was graduating college, if not before, to choose how to use my time with some care. To know my priorities, and follow them. The reality is, I'm passionate about so many people and possibilities, that I can't ever do it all, and I always miss some really wonderful options; but I know I've made good choices and had a whole lot of joy.
(2) Gratitude itself: I'm glad that I have a tendency, and have had for a long time, of taking stock periodically throughout the day and just being grateful for everything. I don't feel like I took it all for granted. I knew my life was almost too good to be believed. And I just paused and appreciated it, a lot. (The secret here, you know, is that all of our lives are too beautiful to be believed, if you really look at them and think about it.)
So I'm keeping those things up, in my new life. My new today life. Because another thing I tend to do, is accept today, the right now. One of my parenting tricks is to pretend that I've just been handed these children, and I can't change anything about how they've been raised until now, all I can do is be in this day with them.
........
This little bit of writing didn't wrap around my thoughts exactly as I had thought they would, but last week I was thinking that what I would like to do with my LJ right now is to write on some theme or another, once a week. So I guess I'll let this stand. G'night folks.