New Year, Same (old) Me
Turning 50
When I turned 50, I started to consider my birthday as my New Year. After all, a birthday signifies you have traveled around the sun another spell and you’re getting ready to start all over again. Why shouldn’t this be a more significant time to reflect on the past 365 days and see where you are compared to where you were?
I am not great at following through on resolutions I make January 1st. But this year, I am seriously pondering how I want 57 to be different and what I need to do to make that happen.
Seven Years Later…
Of course, I want to be healthier. And it never not crosses my mind that I would love to be better at things. Those are the yearly battle cries that I silently whisper to myself so as not to get anyone else too excited for me and feel that they have to remind me what I said I was planning on doing. I can’t go for that.
No can do.
Since I am already doing things that have been on my resolution list for eons, I began to think about what I want the end of my 50’s to look like. The only word that kept coming to mind was …empty.
I don’t really need anything. I want things, don’t get smirking too hard there. I have a wishes/ kisses/pigs list that will never end. Lately, though, when I walk around our house or am out and about browsing through all the shiny wonderful things in the shops, I am just not interested.
I see everything as another…
We already have that. Lots of those. Where would it go? Why not just enjoy all the good things you ALREADY HAVE???????? Don’t I have enough?
Yes. Yes I do. Maybe it’s time to reverse it. Time to let go. And not just of physical things.
Inspiration
On a recent trip, I listened to The Pull of The Moon by Elizabeth Berg. The main character Nan turned 50 and the entirety of all that 50 brings surrounded her and compelled her to take a trip. An unannounced, unexpected trip. Through letters to her husband and entries into her journal, Nan works through what originally she saw as a life that is close to over and how shifting that perspective can mean a whole new life can start.
It was a great moving read and I thought, so appropriate for me now as I am approaching the tail end of 50 and all that brings. What I took away from the book and from my current thinking is that looking back and doing things the way I always have, thinking the way I always did, and believing I am the way I am and that I’m inherently stuck….is well…some rotten hokem HOOEY.
It’s time to empty all the things I am clinging to that no longer are part of the journey moving forward. Those might be physical things (although I am partial to my stuffus and nuffus), and they will definitely be some mental emptying. Giving myself room to breathe. Forgive and let go. Telling myself kind things and being tough on myself when I want to fall into old useless patterns.
Time for me to sit in a quiet place and think. Think about what I really want for myself.
How do I want to grow? In a year, what do I want to be different for myself? What do I want to DO?
How do I want to BE?
How about you?
Are you dealing with the shift into retirement/empty nesting/navigating your 50’s and 60’s?
What new things are you thinking of trying?
Inspire us with your Ordinary Magic!