You know how it is…
when you’re significant other is sick.
No sleep. Running to the pharmacy. Making chicken soup. Doing all the chores by yourself…and then you wake up with a scratchy throat…Ce la vie!
It’s been a busy week and I’ve spent most of it distracted. Pauline Baird Jones had a very poignant post about turning fifty-five and the closing of doors. She says, and I’m quoting a portion of her post -
“But I am living with-to some extent-diminishing possibilities. Doors are closing or are already closed. There are some things I will never do. I’m not saying my life is over, by any means, but it is winding down. I’ve seen pieces of that bucket list movie and have tried to think what I’d put in mine, but I’m kind of relieved to find out that I’ve lived a full and (mostly) happy life. I have no desire to jump out of airplane or climb anything to feel like I’ve lived, because I have already lived the life I wanted to live. My bucket list would have been quieter anyway, since I’m an unapologetic hermit.”
I read her post and I cried. Not for Pauline, she seems content, but because there comes a time in all our lives when we do reach a point of diminishing returns. I’m not there yet, even my parents aren’t there yet, for the most part, but I have had to accept changes. Because of my knee surgery, I will never run or downhill ski again - not that I particularly enjoyed running, but when you can’t do something, you notice. On the other hand, I can do pretty much everything else I want to do. There are so many things I hoped for and wished to do when I was twenty-one…I had so very many dreams, but I didn’t have the money or the time or even the strength, courage and maturity to live them. I’ve grown up a lot in the intervening years, and my dreams have changed. There’s a song that expresses my feelings about life, Why, by Annie Lennox, and here are some of the words -
“This is the book I never read
These are the words I never said
This is the path I’ll never tread
These are the dreams I’ll dream instead
This is the joy that’s seldom spread
These are the tears…
The tears we shed
This is the fear
This is the dread
These are the contents of my head
And these are the years that we have spent
And this is what they represent
And this is how I feel”
Do you know how I feel?
See you tomorrow - Julia
