Hello, friends. I haven’t been here in so long and I apologize for that. My life has been full-on these last two months and included:
- Driving to Boston via Connecticut, seeing Sam, my sisters, my mom, and two dear college friends
- Putting our house on the market – those of you who have done the same will know all the myriad activities hidden in that simple statement. Knock on wood, things are progressing nicely. We won’t breathe that sigh of relief until the papers are signed and the keys are handed over.
- Flying to England for Chris’ mother’s funeral
- Making all of the arrangements for the next stage of our adventure – there are many moving parts, different stages, and several things left on our “to do” list. I will share more of that when it is all done and dusted. What I can share: we are excited.
I’ve had conversations with several of my friends lately about the kinds of things we are thinking about as people in our 60’s. There is an awareness that in the Play of our lives, we are entering the Last Act. And that awareness does not bring sadness or fear – it brings a sense of freedom. And impetus. Now is the time. Now.
One of my sisters has gotten back into working in stained glass, and her creations are so gorgeous – I can’t wait to see what’s yet to come from her. BFF Beth is undertaking a multi-stop solo trip through Northern Europe. Another dear friend has bought a home in Nova Scotia with her Canadian husband after a long, fulfilling teaching and coaching career in New York. Others are still in the dreaming and planning phase.
I firmly believe that you can create your own life. And I say this as someone who, for many years, put myself second, or third, or at the bottom of the list. Who felt obliged to go along with whatever I thought was expected and to be the person I thought others wanted me to be. And then I had a revelation: I may have thought I was responding to outside forces, but I was actually responding to my own perception of outside forces. I was editing myself preemptively. So to quote the great Taylor Swift: I’m the problem; it’s me. I’ve been doing the internal work to try to get past that mindset for a while, but really intensively in the last year. It will always be a work in progress.
When I say I believe you can create your own life, I fully understand that life does put certain constraints on us, whether they be financial, familial, health, mobility, etc. Chris and I will not be buying a retirement home next to George Clooney’s place on Lake Como, for instance. But I think we can all work within our own personal set of given boundaries – thinking of them as a framework rather than a set of constraints – to make the life we lead intentional, beautiful, satisfying, enriching. As a teeny-tiny example, I love beautiful coffee mugs. Having a cup of coffee or tea in one of the fun mugs I’ve bought gives me a sense of joy. Just seeing them on the shelf in the kitchen cupboard makes me smile. I know I’m getting into the territory of Marie Kondo’s “spark joy” here, but we all have our “things” that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside – coffee mugs, pretty patterned bedsheets, and Provencal-patterned cloth napkins and placemats are some of mine.
On a less material level, writing in my journal every day, or most days, is something new to me that brings me joy. I’ve journaled on and off my whole life – I can remember journaling at age 7 – but I haven’t journaled with any regularity for the last few decades (you know you’re getting old when you refer to your life in terms of decades!). I found an app compatible with my Mac called Day One (link to info here) that I have been using and I absolutely love it. It is a free app with purchases available within, but I have found I don’t need or want any of the for-pay functionalities.
Moving forward into this last Act, I want to see how far I can grow my photography skills. I want adventure and travel. I want family and friends and long talks into the night (with the understanding that my bedtime is somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00). I want to express all the love and appreciation I have for those I love. I want (need) the ocean. I want to really be there for MYSELF most of all, and not care what I think other people might think. You have no idea how hard it is for me to let that last sentence just sit there, un-deleted.
April and May will be busy months. Tomorrow I travel to Connecticut to be with my mom on her 93rd birthday. There will be an abundance of overtime at work and then another trip in May, this time to New Zealand – round trip 🙂
I don’t know how much I’ll be able to write in the next couple of months. Perhaps you won’t hear from me until June, but I will try to get here sooner!
Love,
Michelle xoxo