It’s my birthday today. A big one…the 70. Suddenly I realize I’m leaving middle age, and becoming elderly. I’m not exactly happy about this one. In fact, I might be slightly depressed, though I am loathe to admit it. I don’t get depressed, that’s my mantra. Depression doesn’t happen to me.

Bullshit.

I look at my sixties. They started with my divorce finally being final the day before my 60^th birthday. It was a wonderful decade for me. With the finality of the divorce I had the money to buy my dream home, and lived there for 5 happy years with my son. Then at 65 I sold that house and moved here, to Florida. I retired, I am happy here, I have many friends here and a nice life.

Now as 70 begins, I am alone in my little house, and it is my son who starts this decade out, in a new home, 2000 miles away from me. I miss him terribly. The last year of my 60’s, 2020, was a hard one for all of us. It was hard for me because of the injury that kept me in dire pain all year, prevented me from walking and helped me gain weight, and kept me from losing that same weight because my mobility was so limited. It’s still fairly limited, though it’s better. I miss taking long walks. I miss going to the beach. I miss so many things that used to be just part of life.

I know….be grateful for what you do have. I am, I am. I went to my writers group meeting yesterday and my BFF here performed a one woman play that she wrote, and acted, and she was fabulous. She can really act. I feel honored that we are BFF’s. She is so creative she inspires me not to give a shit what others think, but do what makes me happy.

Trouble is, I don’t know today what that is.

I have an idea, but not one I can publish. I am working through it in my head. I’m trying to make sense of something that seems non-sensical, which is something I have done much of my life, and is now habitual, with my ex. I wanted my marriage to work out, so I made excuses, and didn’t trust my gut. I seem to fall into that pattern. Today, I guess I will accept and be happy about what I have. I mean otherwise, I’ll spend the day unhappy, trying to second guess myself, and where I’m at, and not trusting my gut or seeing anything with the clarity that I’m used to.

So what I guess I need to do is go to gratitude, and stop thinking about what could be, what I don’t know to be true. That’s a waste of more time.

I’m getting my new couch and loveseat on Friday. I’m so happy about that, and I say to myself, “See? You are so blessed to be able to buy them.” And yes I am, and I thank the powers that be for the stimulus checks that made it so much easier to do this. My 10 year old sectional was in terrible shape with broken sections. Once the new couch and loveseat are here, I will be able to do things in the house, like sound healing, and reiki, maybe even a reiki circle to broaden my sphere in that modality.

I’m embarrassed for anyone to see the old one, except good friends who have been here and watched the demise of my current sectional. I have to explain to new friends where they can sit and where they can’t. So the delivery of the new ones will be for much more than comfort and appearance. I will be able to have people come here for whatever reason and not be embarrassed by my broken-down couch, and know people can be comfortable as I (or Dan and I) perform private sound healings, or I host a healing circle, or whatever.

So there’s one thing.

Dan is taking me out to dinner tonight, and we’ll be going somewhere nice, and I’m happy about that. There’s a second thing. Though I’d enjoy it more if I hadn’t sat around for a year, unable to move and so putting on weight. Tonight though, I’ll let it go and try to enjoy the meal, and not feel guilty with every mouthful I chew.

I have a plan to change that. I have pretty much committed to myself that I’m going to a local gym tomorrow, and join since it’s free with silver sneakers. I want to go at least 4 times a week, and use the stationary bike and the elliptical to try to strengthen my hip and thigh more. My left leg still is weak, I cannot climb stairs normally yet. Going up stairs requires one at a time, so I can lead with my right leg. My left leg will not lift me up onto the next step. But I have accomplished going down normally so that’s progress, right?

After the soundbath last Monday it took me about 3 days to recover. My hip and lower back were very sore, because I walked about 2 ½ miles just loading and unloading the truck, then walking around the sound healing. Of course I wasn’t thinking about it while I was doing it, but when I got home and rested, I was in some pain. I thought, “You just have to work harder at getting strong.” And so…I HAVE to go to the gym, and work my legs out, and get my back stronger.

I’m grateful that I know what I have to do, and should be grateful for the opportunity and ability to go do it. But honest to God, I am so sick of that injury running my life. Yesterday at my BFF’s play I couldn’t stand with the other women and talk for long, I just had to sit down. I’m sick to death of having to think about that, and feel it. I just want to be normal. So…tomorrow I’ll start to work at it harder than I’ve been.

But I’m so grateful for that wonderful circle of friends. I’m grateful for so much. Just, right now, I have things I’m not so grateful for, or wish were different, and I’m not living in the present moment if I’m thinking about what I wish was different, am I? And I’m making myself responsible for things not in my control because I want things to be different. Which I know is stupid, but now I have to talk myself out of these thoughts. Meditate. Self-reiki. Play my gong.

Every time I type something, I realize a little more how fortunate I am. I guess I’m on the way.

The other night I updated my will, and POA, and living will. I figure I have 10-15 years left on this earth, and want to leave my son something. In particular, I don’t want to leave him a mess that will take ages in probate for him to deal with.

That ending bracket on my life is looming as I hit the 70 year old mark today. No longer a third, or even a quarter of my life left. Time to thin things out, to simplify things. Things, and sometimes people. Well, honestly, I can’t think of any people who are in my life that I don’t want there. So maybe I’ll just begin thinning things, leave my comfortable, close circle of friends as it is, a safe place for me to go. As is my family. I am so blessed to have my two sisters, and that all three of us love each other dearly.

I should probably get one of those books that try to teach us how to let go of things. Because all of my things have meaning to me, I love looking around and seeing them, they are of comfort to me.

I have heard it said to hold each thing, and see what you feel from it. Everything I have, almost, I can remember exactly where it came from, and what I was feeling. It is almost ALL post divorce, almost all from the last 10-15 years of my life. The 40 years before that very blurred by the trauma of living with a mentally ill husband. Blurred in the sense that every good memory from that marriage has a terrible one to counter-balance it. I’ve disassociated myself from that time in my life and now I can observe with the clarity of distance. I try not to remember how I felt all those years. I try to walk away from all the fear, and heartache those 40 years brought me.

I’m not trying to bury those emotions. I’m just trying to live now, in the present, grateful for what I have, and find a way to really live these last years of my life. Live, with some wild abandon. Surprise myself. Bring a smile to my own face, not wait for anyone to put one there. (Although, it would be a wonderful thing, to have someone want to make me smile….)

Thank you for bearing with me on this retrospective, introspective today. Love and light to all.