My last day to be 75

Well, this is fun.

Just found a little piece I had written on this date in 2010.

A moment when I chose to celebrate my last day of being 59.

Today I pause to remember that time.

To remember that we were in the middle of some hard times on that day.

Times when I wondered where I belonged.

Places where I no longer felt welcome.

That was a most unusual feeling for me.

For nearly all of my life I had felt at home and welcome in my world. It had been a good life for the first 50+ years, but that decade had brought some rough news and difficult discoveries and had messed with my sense of belonging.

However... as I read those lines today I can see that I was choosing to focus on the positive, to celebrate the good parts of that moment.  

Little did I know when I wrote and posted that bit of celebration how things might change! Yet that coming summer things began to pivot rather surprisingly. Turns out that my 60’s became a decade of adventure and some crazy changes.

Adventures indeed!  During those next few years we lived on four different islands for short periods. We were “home-free” for awhile and lived in a 28-foot RV for two of those years.

And now we have settled in again… in a new place where I feel welcome… even though it is so different than what used to feel like home to me.

What an amazing journey and what a surprising landing.

What joy to once again be welcomed and to find a sense of belonging.

…

I am really glad that I bumped into that little bit of writing today.

I had barely begun writing just a few short months earlier.

On that day I had no clue what I might soon be writing about.

Sure enough.

I kept building that writing habit.

I kept trying to capture the adventures as they happened.

During those early writing days I wondered if I dared call myself a writer.

Eventually I decided that I could… IF I was writing.

So I did.

I kept writing and even published a book - about that next decade.

I have continued writing into my 70s. 

I wrote another book - this one about my spiritual journey.

As I pause again on this last day of being 75, I continue to be amazed.

And yes, I realize that I can only imagine the adventures ahead.