What I'm thinking today: #celebrate

Thursday, 13 April 2023

Thursday, or Thereabouts - April 13, 2023

Late Breaking News...

A somewhat remarkable thing happened to me nine days ago. I woke up on the morning of April 4 in a brand new decade of my life! While that on its own is not unique - I have crossed into several new decades already - what is new is that this one comes with a leading 7. A whole seventy (70!) years have slid by since my arrival in the world on April 4, 1953.

I don't find this news alarming or disheartening nor wildly spectacular but it is a little bewildering. Seventy years sounds like an awfully long time yet feels like something far less, not a feeling that I can put a number on, as in it only feels like twenty-five, or forty, or..., but a puzzling sum of years that is way less than seventy.

If I spend too much time ruminating about this incongruent relationship between actual and perceived years of life, it turns into an accounting exercise of things accomplished which then very quickly dredges up the unaccomplished, the failures and screw-ups, disappointments and regrets. All of which amounts to a useless waste of time and energy!

I am 70 years old! I've made mistakes along the way, I've missed some opportunities, and I'm sure that I have offended more than a few people (sorry about that, really). My body doesn't work as well nor as long as it used to. It fails me more often than I care to admit, as does my short term memory. If I let all of that get to me, then I become a grumbling old hag and I haven't got time for that wind bag!

At the top of Mont Royal, Montreal April 4, 2023

I am seventy years old. I am learning to be gentle with the world around me, others and myself. All of which are a work in progress with self-gentleness the most difficult and most neglected. I have a massage therapist and an athletic therapist who together keep me going strong. I have more to celebrate than regret, more to look forward to than moan about. Life is good.

Monday, 21 May 2018

Monday - NO Moaning

As foretold by the weather prophets, Saturday was pretty much a washout for outdoor plans yet the day was not without delights. The royal wedding lived up to my hopes and then some. The Duke of Edinburgh looked better than I've seen in a couple of years. Ninety-six and just a few weeks out of hip surgery? Well done, sir!

The bride's mum was the very portrait of a genuine Mother of the bride - open, authentic, real. I felt every emotion she allowed. They were the same as mine on my daughter's wedding day. Three cheers for Doria Ragland. Three cheers also for The Most Reverend Michael Curry for giving us all a lesson in love and for doing so with gusto, throwing some stodgy British Anglicans for a loop. This was no talking head intoning stained glass window words. This was a man of passionate faith speaking from the heart. Amen!

By 10am I was back to regularly scheduled programming - bread baking and kitchen clean up, followed by a trip into town to pick up a new gas BBQ. I am glad it was raining because otherwise, the man and I probably would have busied ourselves with all the outdoor chores begging for attention. The showers gave us the time to assemble the new BBQ. The project was a bit like building a boat in the basement.

Fortunately, we realized that a fully assembled unit would not fit through the door out to the deck before we got too far along. And the rain stopped in time for us to shoehorn it out onto the deck for final assembly. TaDa!