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Tag Archive: Life
Just Jot it January 2023, and it’s brought to you by Carol Anne. Thank you, Carol Anne! Please be sure to visit Carol Anne’s blog to read her post and say hello. And follow her while you’re there, if you’re not already.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 15th 2023, is “gratitude.” Use the word “gratitude” any way you’d like. Have fun!
Gratitude grows with age. At least it has for me. From the days of birthing babies until they grew into wonderful adults that feeling of lucky and blessed has grown with them.
Now having just turned 73, I find so much in every hour to be grateful for. I think I’m most thankful that I am still learning every day. But health seems to be growing and my life is full of love. What more could one want?
Let the Fanfare Begin
Do you remember when you were young and someone asked you how old you were? And you’d square your shoulders and tell them your age plus a half or three quarters or even larger fraction according to how much math had been imparted to your brain. Then somewhere mid-thirties or forties that all started changing. I, for one, reversed the numbers to reflect a smaller number. 41 became 14, 52 became 25. At one point that became useless. Face it. When that happens you have reached maturity. Scratch that, You’re old. Fantastic. I was hiding from my actual age the whole time I’ve been alive. Never happy with the moment wanting to be older or younger. I would have loved to be 33 forever. Mature enough to make my own decisions and young enough to do everything I ever wanted to do. At that age, I could even play in the park without feeling silly as my kids needed the accompanying adult on the slide and the swings. Then I could enjoy a drink and pretend to be a full adult.
Well, here I am at 07 and thinking maybe I should be the fan of the half or three-quarter again. Maybe if the world didn’t have a pandemic and other apocalyptic things like murder wasps, I wouldn’t embrace this. But for those of us with birthdays in December, which has never been a great month for those who were born under its cold, crazy, Christmasy times, the fact may be that many of us might not be here for our birthdays. If and when we do, all the better to show we fancy every moment of life.
So today I attended a half birthday Zoom party. There were elements of fantasy as this was with a cosplay bunch of friends. I could have sworn one of the ladies had elf ears. Anyway, I thought this idea was fun and look forward to my half birthday in a few days. We have life. Let’s celebrate it. even if only on Zoom with friends and family. It may be we are closer to loved ones now than ever before as we need to keep in touch often. Wouldn’t it be great if we could measure our lives in Love? Is Rent playing in my head again? Let me share the earworm. (One of my favorite songs of all time!)
Each second should have always been this precious. We should have never put aside our elders, how quickly we become one! As we try to save lives let’s make sure to pull it in and let it sit with us. Before COVID19 a car accident or cancer could rob us of a loved one but it was so seldom that we didn’t bring it in until it was too late. We’ve been given a bit of a gift to look at saving and loving our lives and loving the lives of others.
Half-Birthday? I’m a fan. I might even enjoy a three-quarter Birthday! Hey, remember being a newlywed? We got so sappy! Two-week anniversaries were fun! Let’s get back to that kind of excitement. Life is a gift. We can still be careful and distance and hand-wash, AND love life!
Per Linda:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “fan.” Use it by itself or find a word that starts or ends with it. Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/
#WDIIA
Per Linda:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wire.” Use “wire” as a noun or a verb or any way you’d like. Enjoy!
More slipper socks finished. Yay!
And the snow is falling. About an inch in an hour. Here’s the latest of my porch banister that was just wet and brown an hour ago:
(revised edit: two inches now at the finish of the blog)
That is the peaceful scene I wished for in December or January. Here we are early spring and I wanted to start getting out for walks. But I guess it is helping all of us stay inside and meditate our lives.
You know at any moment we all could have died. Let’s say by accident or gunshot or our own stupidity. I guess the risk-takers would have been more prone to death than those who live from a cautious point of view. It’s all according to how we are wired.
Heck, we have enough coyote-to-roadrunner ratio here that we could have been hit by:
The loss of life from any or all those incidences are devastating. Yet, they happen every day, bar the anvil. We try to protect ourselves as best we can from any of these, yet our thoughts don’t stray to or remain on the what-ifs.
Our new shared reality is built of constant worry on top of the regular worries of paying bills and surviving winter.
Some of us are wired to be gregarious. We must be around people at all times. Others of us are more of quiet wiring. Many taught to greet with a hug or handshake are shaken to bows or not even meeting people. Besides, who has toilet paper these days? You don’t want to shake that hand!
This is a time for the introverts to enjoy not feeling guilty for staying home, enjoying our own company. This is a time to reflect on how death has always been just around the corner. But facing that it may or may not be your own is hard to grab onto.
We came into this thinking it one more hoax, one more conspiracy. A joke. But even if so, life has come to a halt. Many I know are finding people they know have the virus. Many have it that can’t be tested. It is fear upon fear.
It is like we just opened a new book and we find ourselves in The Walking Dead or something like it. Panic is our worst enemy. Take a lesson from the disaster movies. Stay put and use your time to ponder.
I am finding it hard to listen to the constant fears of others. I’m 70 after all! I have lived a wonderful life. I have a great extended family and fantastic friends. I would hate, at any point in my life to have lost any of them.
At the same time, I have been the young mother as my young children romped about me. I chose not to take my children to see grandparents if any of us were even the slightest bit ill. So I don’t believe in my heart I cause their demise. Yet, at my age, I have lost many I have loved. This is something you never get used to. I assume if it happens on a large scale the loss will be overwhelming. Let’s hope that that doesn’t happen.
Meanwhile, what if we only have a few days to be alive? A few days to enjoy the amount of health we do have? Why spend our last moments worrying. Outside of proper precaution, what more can we do? I’m not saying ‘eat, drink, and be merry,’ I’m saying love your people. Spend as much time as you can by connecting in the ways earlier pandemics didn’t have: Skype, FaceTime, google chat. Talk on the phone if you can handle it. Write out your thoughts, email. If you are so inclined: write letters. I don’t know if sending the letters is advisable as others will have to touch and handle the mail to their detriment. But once this passes, and it will pass, there will be ways to reach out or remember each other.
I do believe we are wired to LOVE.
Or could this be early Monday Madness? No. It still has to be Sunday as I am still awake. If I say it is Monday then I will have missed a day of blogging and my record is ruined! I can’t have that! I like that I do this every day. Even when it isn’t the greatest of blogs, it is the habit I want to keep.
Some things in our lives don’t take working at. Like breathing, swallowing, eating. But some days getting out of bed is a challenge. So I try to make sure I do it. I try not to take naps so that my nights are better, but since Hubby broke his shoulder our schedules have messed up with pain and naps have to happen. Brushing teeth. There is one that isn’t like breathing. I have to tell myself a couple times a day to do it or it flies away into the land of forgotten things. Brushing my hair. This one includes pain sometimes so I have to find a way to keep it corralled. A ponytail does that and keeps it out of my eyes and off my face. I’m seriously thinking of cutting it all off. The only thing that stops me is the in-between lengths when it can be so much more work than a ponytail.
Reading is like breathing. I never have to tell myself to read. It just happens. Writing reviews? Not as easy. In fact, I have three I need to do tomorrow!
Along with reading is loom knitting. My hands get anxious when I am not doing it.
Gosh, I think that is all of the easy habits. EVERYTHING ELSE TAKES –what? Will-power? Not so much. Will-power is energy I don’t have. And doing the blog and my languages and my piano and taking walks have to flow from something else. Passion? Not the flaming kind. But, yeah–that or a sense of pride?
Sorry that I am using you as a sounding board but jump right in and help me understand how to make better habits. I do feel a sense of pride for blogging every day since New Years and the same track record on the Duolingo languages.
All of this was somewhat easier when I was a full-time mom, working, pre-pain. Now I have to work at all of it. I’m truly sorry for the parents who have to deal with pain, for people who have to work while in pain. Yes, I did have that and managed. But I’m going to tell you, faking it, smiling and doing your job dressed in uncomfortable clothing, thinking when your brain refuses, all that catches up with you; can break you. Finding the balance back then was doing nothing after work. So many things I wanted to do but had no energy to try.
Now I have all the time but lack energy and funds. So I want to do it wisely. I have so many interests. I have always had a million interests. How to turn those into habits so as to squeeze the most out of the life I’m in.
How do you all handle your passions, interests, balance?
Darswords 
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