The Doneness of Youth

I am having difficulty recognizing the “doneness” of my youth.  Fortunately, I am not resentful about it, yet there are some things that startle me from time to time.

I am not going back to school to have a different profession “someday”.  I will never be the sole support of an infant’s nutrition again.  I will not sweat through my kids’ driving test ever again.  I will never be a stage performer or a singer.  Not because my life is over – not even close, but because I recognize my limitations and I am real about them.  I see that I will not start a business and become startling wealthy from my clever investments and management strategies.  I am not closing the door on becoming wealthy though, I also know I can’t hold my breath.

There is no distant and rosy future.  The future is now.  I realize that nothing important can be put off until tomorrow because tomorrow is limited, it has constraints.

My body does not wish to cooperate with me so much.  I am slow at healing and I have the thyroid disease.  The disease affects me in many, many ways.  I cannot shrug off the side effects of my medication because they will and they do affect me.  I took a very low dose sleeping pill until I realized that I could not remember anything, whoops… side effects do pertain to me!  Loss of memory is the side effect of taking this medication.  My body, as it is now, is not as resilient as it used to be.

I’m not done learning, but I don’t need direction and correction.  It’s not that I am not open, in fact, I am very open.  I am also very weary of assumptions.  Often those who are sure, have never asked a question, nor done any worthy research.  So my experience sometimes leads me to impatience.  Don’t come at me if you don’t know what you are talking about…

A good thing… I’ve lost the need to be unselfish or to martyr myself on behalf of others.  Realizing that I have no tomorrow helps me to understand that if I want diamond earrings, I need to buy them now.  If I want to indulge in flowers, I need to do it now, not later when my house is perfect, or later when I have “extra” cash.  If I want flowers, I need to buy them now.

I always enjoyed being focused and building things.  I built a life with my kids, near them and dear to them.  I had to let them go, it is the destiny of all parents to relinquish children to their own futures.  All of my building *a family* has gone into the ether, no longer useful to today.  I am not regretful about losing my importance to my kids.  The less important I am, the better off they are.

What I realize with my age is that, I had no other plan.  It is as if my entire life hinged on raising the kids and having a career.  Now that process is either complete or winding down – I had no other ideas about what to do next.  Now that I am no longer self-sacrificing I do not wish to spend the rest of my life blindly stepping forward to music that someone else is playing.  I want my own orchestra and symphony.