SUMMARY: Life isn't always what one expects or hopes for.
I have been pondering my life over the last week or so; not sure of the trigger, but I'm diving deep upon finding that I'm considerably less happy than I've been trying to be for quite a while.
A lot of it still has to do with loss in recent years. At a pace that continues accelerating--which shouldn't be surprising as I grow older, but still...
So much of it also has to do with my expectations about life, and although (seriously) most of my life has gone very well, still, I'm counting many things that have mattered to me and scoring them lower and lower.
At a high level, for example:
I expected to be married until he or I died, but that ended after 20 years.
I expected to be doing agility and hiking until I died, but arthritis is making that prospect dimmer--and that started showing up about the time of my divorce.
I did move on, bought a house, changed my expectations about the rest of my life.
I've been lucky enough that the arthritis more or less was manageable for a decade and a half after that, but the last 4 years have been a rollercoaster.
Still trying to change my expectations about the rest of my life--or maybe trying again--but trying to change also is a rollercoaster. You know, wah wah, kicking my heels, I don' wanna!
People who have rediscovered themselves after much bigger challenges than mine are inspiring in reminding me that I have a lot to work with; just have to decide, again, how to do it.
[TO DO: Insert Future is Here photo when blogger/google drive is back up.](1)
Am I asking too much?
Sadly, the DM isn't answering my calls, texts, or emails, so I'll have to figure out something on my own. Hate when that happens.
Purely coincidence: After typing all the previous, a friend posted a link to this Green Day song, which hits me here, right in the middle of my blog. I'm Still Breathing.... (asks: Are you scared to death to live?) Graphics are grim but in a hopeful way...
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(1) Why I had trouble uploading images.
Photo credits: Signposts: Ellen Levy Finch (back yard--and also I made them); Future Is Now sign: Ellen Levy Finch (downtown San Jose)
I'm sad that you're less happy than you expected to be. I wonder if that's partly loss, partly the way we age, and that as we reflect on our past life there isn't always something that we wish we had done, or not done or thought about or tried. I'm having thoughts about all the things I probably won't get to do, just because the years are running out. And are we being maudlin in thinking this way at our ages? I am continually, CONTINUALLY, surprised that I am 63. I forget that so often, until something hurts, knee, hip, neck, wrist, foot, back, that I'm older than the 45 I seem to think I am. I've been sad, too, to think that so much of my life is finished and I don't get to have a do-over. On the other hand...retirement is worth getting older for. So anyway, this rambling, nonsensical comment is meant to make you feel less alone. I hope it works.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dawn. I hope that I can retire in the next year or 2. Thought I would a year or 2 ago but, well, Things. I have had recurring bouts of depression in my lifespan--not as in suicidal, but as in, I don't think I can get out of bed this morning. I'm not down in that pit at the moment, but I am definitely struggling, comparing the way many things used to be that were better with the way they are now (instead of the opposite), a bit of a sign of depressive thinking. Five years ago, things didn't seem to bad, and I was still looking more forward than back. Maybe that *is* aging and realizing that the years remaining are shrinking, but for me I also think a lot of it is the physical stuff--it's so restrictive in so many ways. Retirement doesn't seem like the panacea that it did without the physical restrictions. You know--oh, when I retire, I can hike all day and travel all the time and go do agility.... oh, wait, no, my knees are killing me. (Or whatever.) I also feel like I'm just whining. Thanks for listening.
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