In case I haven't mentioned it, I will soon turn sixty. Did I hear a chuckle somewhere? The last few months have been a time of revelation and inner conflict; a roller-coaster ride of sorts. I've been telling you about it so that if you haven't done it already I don't want you to wait as long as I did to start looking for yourself. At almost sixty I have finally decided on many of the things I want from life. Some of them are well beyond my grasp.
When I was much, much younger I thought of a career in advertising. I would make up commercials in front of my dresser mirror. At another age a dairy farm in, say, Wisconsin sounded peaceful, the wide open spaces calling me. Maybe I should live in a tropical paradise, sipping mai tais. Maybe it is the high-powered world of politics I crave, or maybe it is the fame and fortune of being a best-selling novelist.
Instead, I ended up as a copywriter in the advertising department of a now-defunct department store, as the owner of a now-defunct candy shop, as a non-descript sales rep where I am a small cog in a very big hub. It isn't what I had planned.
For most of my life I have been somewhat of a lemming, or "quisling" as my husband would say. I willingly went with the tide instead of creating my own surge. Over the years I would come to my senses in fits and spurts, like in the candy store days, but the enthusiasm was hard to maintain. It wasn't so much that I was unsupported, but that I felt unsupported. I am not one who likes to stand alone.
My bucket lists, both published and private, are a drop in the...uh...bucket. Every day that I get closer to that benchmark of sixty, I think of more things I haven't done. First, I need an influx of cash. I've been told that some of my essays should be published. I will need a vanity press; I have no illusions about a publisher coming to me. Second, I need a new Facebook picture. Third, there's the bathing suit fiasco. Lordy. The list goes on and on.
If I look back at the things I have longed for, I see few parallels to my life as it is. The advertising career no longer appeals. The dairy farm in Wisconsin would be too much work, although I would still enjoy the cheddar. The tropical paradise? I want a little taste of the mai-tai, just once. Politics? How I would love to serve in a way that would change someone's life! But that takes a freedom and dedication I don't have. Fame and fortune from the written word are not in the foreseeable future, although I am not as old as Grandma Moses yet. I love the writing part anyway. Every time someone says to me that an essay has made a difference in his or her life, I grin from ear to ear. Maybe it isn't the fame and fortune I crave. Maybe it is just the strokes.
I am counting down the days till I turn sixty. I am plotting my progress and revising my bucket lists from day to day. I am still an adolescent in growth terms. Some days I sprint ahead, others I tumble backwards. I pray not for material things (although a classic car I would not kick out of the driveway), but for insight and strength to accomplish my goals, and the wisdom to recognize my failings and to learn from them.
There are choices I must make. I can do things my way (gee, that has worked out well) or His way.
It's a matter of using the free will we were given wisely, instead of selfishly.
I think I learned something today.
The cool thing about being sixty is that the bar for what passes for acceptable looks is much lower than it was at - oh - 59 1/2. All it takes is a pleasant countenance, a body with some shape, and enough energy and endurance to thrive in a physical world.
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