April Ramblings

 

I watched a movie recently, The Life List, about a dying mother who, instead of leaving her thriving business to her daughter, leaves her a series of DVDs and the life list her daughter wrote when she was 13 about things she wanted to do with her life. In the video messages, the mother encourages her now young adult daughter to go after these dreams.

Do we relinquish the dreams of our youth, or do we set them aside, intending to pick them up one day. But the days go by, weeks, months, years turn into decades. And one day we find ourselves . . . old, but not old. Because, in our hearts and minds, we are still the youth we once were.

Except, so much has changed, and are those same dreams the ones we want to chase now? Or have they shifted, evaporated, been replaced by something new. But what exactly? The new dreams are shrouded in mist, and we cannot quite discern the shapes, the textures. We only know that there is still something, something we must do. We begin to pay attention to what we are paying attention to, a phrase we heard on a podcast, and it stuck with us. Pay attention to what you’re paying attention to.

My retirement journey is six months in, and I’ve been doing the things I’ve been wanting to do: paint, sit, write, read. All the things I wanted more of when I was busy at my day job. But still, I want more. Does that wanting more never stop? Is it wrong to want more?

Be present, they say, be grateful for the small things, like health and daily bread and a sunny day, however rare. And I am. I am grateful for all of these, the comfort of my home, my body that can still walk and even chase down a ball on a tennis court, but not all the balls I chased ten years ago. And that’s okay too, I tell myself. But is it? Is it okay to welcome and embrace this march into my elder years? Yes, yes, they say, aging brings gifts and wisdom and freedom. And all that is true too. And I don’t miss my job, which is odd, because I enjoyed it. But I have no desire to be back in that world where the words ‘pivot’ and ‘low-hanging fruit’ and ‘incentivize’ are tossed around the room as if they carried the weight of inspiration. I rolled my eyes at them. Words have power, it's true, but not those words. Not for me.

These days the words you hear most are ‘tariffs’ and ‘trade war’ and they too carry weight. You try to shut out the noise, but you can’t help tuning it back in. Because this is the world you live in now, and this might well be the world you die in. And you don’t want that kind of world, but what can you do?

You can seek joy, you tell yourself. Joy in small doses. You can walk amongst the trees and stop to watch the ducks. You can delight in the heron at the pond, at the cardinal flitting amongst the leaves. And you do. But then, the world intrudes again, and you allow it. Because you are part of this world, and it’s pointless to pretend you can shut it out.

And so, you open your laptop and you tap out words and more words. And somehow, this feels good. This rhythm on the keys. Because all you have left are words.

You think of creating your own Life List, one that suits you now, in this stage. But you already know what will be on that list. It is all the things you are doing right now: write, read, paint, travel, play. What’s the point in creating such a list? You dare not create an abstract list of how you’d like the world to be. You can only do what they say is the only thing you can do. And they’re right.

The only thing I can control is me.