Who Am I To Complain?

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash

An accident made me think. An email made me weep. Both made me grateful

There isn’t a whole lot of time from the moment you realize you’re going down hard to the moment you land. All that nonsense about twisting in mid-air like a cat?

Not if you’re attached to your dog, and not if she’s 65 lbs of heat-seeking missile.

Mika was just ahead of me. I was on the phone. My right toe caught a piece of raised concrete and I went flying.

Sadly, as so often happens, I landed on my palms on concrete and gravel. The additional twenty or so pounds of my weighted vest helped put a little extra oomph into that landing.

Shit. I located my phone, laughed ruefully with my friend who’d heard the impact, then walked back home, bleeding all over the place. You know the kind of scrape:

I’m a bleeder, so I left a trail for the 3/4 of a mile all the way back home. Put some liquid bandage on all but the big one (yes you scream), and sat the rest of the day.

Honestly, it was a gift.

Instead of running around doing chores, I sat out on my deck until sunset, watching the trees sway, the shadows change and reading a book.

People pay a lot of money to be in a place like my house, to do precisely that.

I’ve been here five years as of the end of this month and I am only just now enjoying my house.

Rest, relax, just BE. It sure has taken me a long time to learn to do that living here. I bought the place for the decks and the quiet, and rarely have I ever given myself that gift.

I had an entire day free of compulsive chores, doing, focus.

Various parts of me hurt enough so that I can’t do the gym until my hands scab over. Hmph. This hurts, that hurts, blah blah blah. Oh poor me.

I’ll live.

Someone else in my orbit may not.

This morning I read the week-three update email on a friend of mine recently diagnosed with Stage Four Ovarian Cancer.

It was a lively story about nutrition, hair loss, hats, wigs, friends who show up and more. This woman is just shy of sixty. She may never see 62 or 65.

I wept. I weep every time I get those updates.

We’ve known each other for 26 years. Always lively, a fellow pilot (she got her licenses, I didn’t), a seriously smart and energetic woman, she is fighting for her life. Her days are dictated by chemo, medication, nutrition, doctor’s reports, family and kids’ visits.

She’s a fellow soldier. Using every bit of that discipline to manage the process which may or may not save her life, or at least give her a few more years with her sons.

How many of my years, my moments, do I waste complaining about…anything?

I am mobile. Scraped up and sore. I can get better.

She may not.

Many of us on Substack write about deaths in the family, losses of people close to us, suicides. Some of us have difficult conditions and diseases which strictly limit the kind of life we can live.

The older we get, the more death we witness. All of us at a certain age watch our own bodies change and begin to change our options, as physical changes erase certain dreams we’ve always said we’d get around to.

Someday.

We all discuss the importance of living in the moment, being here now, appreciating the gift that life is. Yet someday so often never comes.

After a while when the loss isn’t so intimate, are we really living? Or are we back on social media doing whatever we do, letting those priceless moments go by as we do life rather than live it? Are we back in all our comfortable habits?

How often do we sincerely share Mary Oliver’s magnificent quote about our “one wild and precious life” and then disappear into the Facebook or Notes whirlpool?

I’ve got some deadlines. They’ll wait.

Today I am going back out on the deck for a few hours with my lunch, my dog and a book. I don’t give a shit that it’s Monday. Monday can go spit.

I am going to race back to the bedroom where Mika hurls herself onto the pillows to roughhouse. Where we send bolsters flying and end up breathlessly happy under the overhead fan.

Photo by Gustavo Zambelli on Unsplash

Today I booked a flight to Las Vegas in October to do a seriously badass adventure, Sky Combat Ace.

It’s ridiculously expensive. It’s also a long-held dream of mine. I love to fly, have about 71 hours of my own time in cockpits. I might or might not get my license. I will never fly a fighter jet, but this is the next best thing.

I have always wanted to do this.

Putting this on my credit card is worth it. It was a bucket list item. Now it’s a goal.

Goals are dreams with dates on them.

Many of us write that tomorrow isn’t promised. We all agree, we nod sagely. Then we all too often go back to doing what we’ve always done.

I made a date with a dream. My friend, who is struggling for the right to stay alive, is my inspiration.

I am grateful that all I have are aches and pains and scrapes.

I am grateful that my friend reminds me of how immensely fortunate I am to be mobile, untethered to an IV, with time left to me, at least for now.

I am going to make better use of the time I have been given.

What will you do today? Where will you go?

What space will you make in your life, can you make in your life, for the things you dream about?

Let’s be grateful.

Let’s play.

Photo by Chris Leipelt on Unsplash

Heartfelt thanks to all who inspire me and thank you for your support.

Note to those who travel: if you like deals, consider signing up for Going.com, formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights. I scored a deal to Las Vegas for $120 R/T. If you’re watching pennies and who isn’t, might be worth looking into