It is February 17th on a snowy Saturday morning here in Bucks County (an hour outside of Philadelphia), PA. A few weeks ago, Punxsutawney Phil (a.k.a. The Groundhog) who is the purported prognosticator, didn’t see his shadow which was supposed to indicate an early spring. I guess Mother Nature didn’t get the memo since this is the second snowstorm in a week. I had dug myself out a week ago and later today, I will do it again. There was a time when it would have been a joy to frolic in the snow after scooping and scraping the walkway and driveway. In the past decade, post heart attack and COPD diagnosis, it has become a workout. I take it slowly, with breaks as needed. My mother used to tell me, when my childlike enthusiasm over a snow day had me eager to get out and play in it, “Wait until you have to shovel it and drive in it.” At 65, I am finding that she was, sadly, correct. It has become a necessity and not a joy…sigh. I will do it anyway.
At the moment, I am listening to Sleepy Hollow on WXPN, lounging in jammies, until I need to get ready for a Zoom presentation. Breakfast was a weird concoction of vegetarian green eggs and ham. I savored organic eggs mixed with greens and avocado, which really turned the eggies green, veggie sausage and halo orange, toast with pumpkin pie spice sprinkled on it, while sipping ginger-lemon tea.
These days, my life is slower paced, when pre-pandemic, this social butterfly would flit here, there and everywhere, driving down to the DC area to teach and visit with friends sometimes twice a month. With FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), I would attend nearly every gathering, house party, concert, and workshop I was invited to. Now, I experience JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) as I enjoy more solitude in my cozy, colorful home. Music, reading, writing, and napping are part of days when I am not working. Workouts at the gym are fit in as I can, between watching my grandchildren in the mornings. Most days, my job as a therapist occurs from home, with the advent of telehealth, that my practice began offering in the early days of COVID. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, I need not drive an hour round trip to my office more than once or twice a week.
Now, I am more deliberate and mindful in my actions. I talk my way through the routines, as I remind myself in advance, what needs to be accomplished, so that the tasks don’t slip from my mind like they would as if they were sand and water through my fingers. I mentally check them off and move on to the next one. My inner voice is supportive, rather than critical as it had been in the past. I am my own coach, “Come on, you’ve got this. You’ll get done whatever you need to accomplish today. No worries.”
I listen to and watch the news, shaking my head in disbelief and disgust at times and smiling with relief and feeling encouraged and hopeful at others.
My car is also my ashram, as I go within and have conversations with the ancestors who I sense are watching over me, as well as my wise mind who knows stuff, sometimes, even before it happens. Rather than ruminating over what I can’t control and what I have held on to that was really holding on to me, I observe the thoughts as if they are floating down my stream of consciousness. “There goes my worry. There goes my fear. There goes all the things I wish I had done differently that I can’t go back and change.” I wave at them as they drift on by, rather than scrambling to gather the thoughts to clean up the twigs and dirt before anyone can see how messy my mind can be at times.
I used to have a long bucket list with items I have checked off and now, as I am closer to the end than the beginning of my life, I don’t have many to replace them. The urgency just isn’t there as it had been. I have desires but no compulsion to meet them. I greet them and ask how we can travel together and just have fun together. I had role models for healthy and successful aging with my parents and older friends so I know it is possible. I am enjoying each day as it comes, re-directing any thoughts that despair the state of the world. Instead, I use my voice in spoken and written form to express alternatives to what we have now, I use my arms and heart to embrace my life and the people in it.
I wonder where it will all lead.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Author