End of July

July always goes by too fast for me.  Perhaps it is because I spend so much time thinking about the 25th of July, my birthday.  I feel excitment and anticipation as "my day" approaches while also feeling dread and regret.  The excitment comes from knowing my dear friends and family, acquaintences and the like will all be more attentive on that day and those around it.  We will celebrate my having come into the world.  The dread and regret comes when I think about getting older and how life is passing by so rapidly and I start to realize I haven't accomplished everything in my life I thought I might.

It is a real mixed bag of emotions for me in July.  

Then the 25th passes and the end of the month rushes in.  July is over and August begins and soon it will be Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving in a blink of the eye.  Christmas and New Year's and then another year begins.  My how the time speeds up year after year.  And July is the fastes month of the year, for me any way.

So I survive every year and thank my lucky stars I am alive and can celebrate another year on earth.  I look back and realize things have not been all that bad...just not super-star brilliant.  When I was a kid, I dreamed of being someone, someone famous I suppose.  It would just happen.  Never worked on it.  Just got by.  And that's not so bad.  I have many people who care about me as much as I care about them.  I have a comfortable life and am free to do much of what I want to do.  

I am happy...overall.

So I say goodbye to another July.  August will be here in a few short hours.  Now that I think back on the past thirty one days, I haven't fallen into the usual ruminations about what is the meaning of life or where I am I headed.  I actually am fairly content.  And there is still time to live my life as I intended.  

I need to make a list...a bucket list, maybe?  No, a list. I do better when I can see my intentions in writing.  I think I will work on that in August.  August can be a very long month.

Sitting in Recovery

Some things take time.  Like recovery.  You know, like when some big thing happens in your life and you have to adjust, to get over it.  You may have known it was coming.  You may have studied for it.  You might have meditated on it for hours.  Probably you talked about it with friends or family.  You imagined how it would affect you.  You dreamed about it.  In your heart of hearts you knew it was inevitable.  Yet, you thought maybe, just maybe, it would not come.  That the change would somehow circumvent you.  You would be spared.  And still, you knew it would come.  The change.  The event.  The big thing that would change your life for ever.  And you knew you would survive.

So here's what I am recovering from now: another birthday.  To be precise, my 60th birthday.  

Birthdays are curious things.  And those ending in “0” are even more “curious-er”.  They are only numbers indicating the passage of time, yet so much importance is attached to those numbers.  And without them, would we ever truly realize how much time has passed and how old we have become in comparison to those around us?   And if we didn’t count the years and mark the milestones ending in “0” how would we ever know we are indeed maturing like a fine wine?

And so I sit here in awe realizing 60 birthdays have come and gone.  Who would have thought that it would come to this for moi?  And yet, here I am and, for all intents and purposes,  I am still here.  Yet I still feel like the kid of 10, the youth of 20, the serious man of 30, the middle-aged guy of 40, the half-a-centurian of 50,  all wrapped together in a package called getting older.

And life goes on.  An I am in recovery from the jolt of realizations and reflections.  And the best thing is I have friends and family who are patient and supportive as I muse my way through these times and share thoughts on life, love and laughter...and what might have been....and best of all, what is yet to be.

This one may be for me, but I think you might relate.  I am amazed by how fast my fifties flew by.  I turned fifty just before 9/11.  Not only my station in life changed, but the entire world changed.  And time seemed to speed up.  Of course that is a factor of age I imagine and the vast changes in the world in general.  But it occurs to me that for most of the past ten years (age 50 through 59) I lived a somewhat distracted life.  Great things happened to me but they also happened to others in my life and in the world in general.  Things events all seemed to take my attention away from my own life.  Aha!

I have been meditating a lot about being mindful, about living mindfully.  Life is for the living.  60 is the new 40.  Be mindful.  Be aware.  Be present.  The last one is the one I seem to have trouble with.  Being present.  It seems people are constantly asking me about places or events I have been physically present at, but have no clear memories of.  That is worrisome.  Sometimes the memories come back.  Sometimes not.  I am on Catalina Island this weekend. I know I have been here before.  But when we first arrived, I couldn’t remember when or with whom.  That is of concern.

So as I begin this new decade...the seventh decade of my time here on Earth...I am cultivating mindfulness.  I will pay attention and I will be present...especially in my own life.  The journey is the essence of life.  It is as we walk we exist, we experience and we thrive.  The journey is indeed more important than the destination.  When we get there I do believe it would be imperative to remember how we got there.

Being Somewhere Between Hopes and Dreams

It is very difficult to let go of hope and of dreams. Sometimes the two are intertwined.  Sometimes they are the same thing.  Other times, hope is what gets you through a difficult time while a dream is something that can take you out of that difficult time.  In either case, hopes and dreams are something that we can find ourselves clinging to.

Change is inevitable.

Perhaps it is change I am resisting.  The unknown is just so, well, unknown.  I hope that some things in the present reality will change.  Often, no usually, they do not.  And dreams die hard.  If you are lucky, dreams don't have to die.  And some dreams do come true.  At least I hope they do.  It has happened a time or to for me.  But it is that pesky prospect of change that gets in the way of moving beyond hope and actuating those dreams.

What are these hopes and dreams I am referring to?  Well, more often than not they are for success or for love or for successful love or simple love of what your life has become.  Dreams are born of fantasy.  In my fantasies, all is well.  The birds sing while at my feeder or birdbath and the dogs sleep by my feet while I spin tales of past and present.  Reality and memory blend together into my version of what was and what will be.

Indeed, I say again, change is inevitable.

So here I am in a moment of peace.  I know it will not last, but I fall into it with grateful abandon.  The air is just the right temperature and a gentle breeze stirs the trees.  But soon again those bothersome activities of people doing what people do to keep their lives in order come into my consciousness and bring me back to my own "must-do's".

But for one more moment I resist the change and then with a settled heart, move into it.  Thank goodness for memory and the ability to choose where I give my attentions.  I will continue to hope for the highest good for all concerned, dream of times both coming and gone that gave me joy and accept the changes that are inevitable.

Just Stop And See What Happens

Just stop something you have been doing and see what happens.  This will certainly clarify for you in many cases if what you are doing matters to anyone and what you personally may be getting out of it.  And most importantly, if no one notices, perhaps it isn't something you need to be doing.

Just stop and see.

I stopped, not intentionly, doing my daily blog.  My goal back in February of this year was to "blog" Monday through Friday, just as if it were a daily blog.  I had hoped it would become something people looked forward to and actually read and, maybe, just maybe, got something out of.  Well, indeed, it was!  I found that there were folks who were reading it regularly.  Some of them actually commented and gave me feedback.  I cherished those e-mails and took heart.

Just stop and see.

So here and there I missed some days.  In fact, I missed Tuesday and Wednesday this week.  No notice.  Just got busy and didn't sit down and write my thoughts and musings those days.  No one said anything, yet I am sure some folks noticed.  I know I noticed.  I noticed that I let myself down and then it hit me, that is why I do it.  A committment to myself to accomplish something with my writing.

It was a start.

Just stop and see.

So here I am again, at the keyboard, thinking and musing and posting it to the small mailing list and to Facebook.  Only two people ever subscribed to the actual blog, but then I make it easy to get it if you want it.  The important thing is I do it.  And I know when I don't.  And I am disappointed in myself when I don't.

And that is the important thing I guess.  What I think, what I muse and that I follow through.  Aha!

So here you are and there you go.  Once again the blogger blogs.  He hopes for affirmation, for comments, for your observations and comments, but in reality, it is the doing that is important.  I don't suppose the great authors sat and wondered if anyone would read or was reading their product.  They just did it.  Because they had to.  Because they wanted to.  Because it was something they did.

Just stop and, my friends, you will see.

Then It Hit Me

A week ago I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning.  Somewhere during the process, my hygienist, whom I have been going to for over 15 years, asked me if I was thinking about getting invisaligns.  I immediately said no.  I had said no many times before.  No, no braces of any kind for me.  My teeth aren't that bad. Plus, like I have been saying for 15 years, I am too old for that nonsense.  My teeth will last me until I don't need them any more, crooked or not.

My hygienist is alway cheerful and rarely daunted.  She said to me that if I ever change my mind, let her know.  She thought I would be happy for straight teeth...even at my age.  We laughed, because she and I are the same age.

So we finished up with the scraping and polishing and deep flossing and flouride treatment.  And all the while, I kept thinking.  I thought, "Maybe it would be nice to have straight white teeth and who cares how old I am?"  And of course invisaligns are clear and most folks would never know I had them on.

Then I began to think about that one tooth on the lower front, that was sticking out behind the rest.  And how my two front teeth up top kind of overlapped.  I thought to myself that maybe it was not such a bad thing to want straight teeth.  And so, even though I had said no to the hygienist, when the dentist himself came in, I found myself asking about invisaligns, etc.

The dentist told me that my teeth, in fact my whole oral hygiene and health would improve dramatically.  In fact I would keep my teeth longer and not be as prone to certain orally generated diseases, including heart attacks and strokes.  Having read this in various publications, I knew there was probably some truth to it.  "Okay, Doctor, how about it?"

So today I began the process of getting fitted for invisaligns.  Expensive, yes.  And my insurance pays zilch for orthodontics.  Maybe it paid more while I was working, but not now.  But I do have a medical savings plan, so, I thought, why not?

It was while I was sitting in the chair having the molds made and pictures taken and x-rays done, it hit me: I am not getting any younger.  Okay, I already knew that.  And this year as 60 approaches, I figure, why not treat myself to something that is for me and will make me not just smile, but smile more broadly?  And then I thought I could make this process that will take about a year more or less, a time to self-improve, you know, spruce up the old temple of God here.
And so it has begun.  I am going to do it.  It hit me too that had I done this ten, twenty, thirty years ago...well...who knows?  But I also wonder if when it hit me, it knocked something loose, like a screw or something.  But it really doesn't matter.  Its not botox or face lifts or even coloring my hair.  It is a permanent change to permanently improve my health.  And this could be just the beginning.  And even if a bus hits me tomorrow, I might as well doing something to liven things up, just in case it doesn't.

Checking In

It is important to check in.  Just a quick hello to see how things are going.  So, how are things going?  Are you doing well these days?  What's the scoop?  Is life treating you okay?  I am doing well.  Things are not exactly as I thought they might be at this time in my life, but then, when do things ever go the way we imagine...at least en toto.

Of course I had no clear vision of how life would be when I retired from the County.  There have been twists and turns, U-turns, forks in the road and cliffhangers.  But all in all it is going well by me.

I often think about you and yours and all that is going on in your life.  Really.  You may not think so, but my cross my mind daily.  Hopefully you don't trip on the debris and scattered thoughts in my mind, but I am sure if you do, it would be soft landing.  Do I cross your mind now and then?

If you are reading this, then I am happy.  I write to be read.  I like to share my thoughts and musings with you.  I hope that you are often entertained and sometimes enlightened.  Maybe sometimes you are even provoked to think about things in a different way...whether you agree with what I say or not.

Okay, just thought I would check in.  Plus I had no other thought or musing right now.  I will return you now to your regular station.  Remember to tune in to what is going on in your life and enjoy the ride.