No One Really Tells You The Hardest Part Of Getting Older

[Diamond_Dog]

https://medium.com/middle-pause/no-one-really-tells-you-the-hardest-part-of-getting-older-ddd4ec40dc81?source=email-725dd54fb926-1685600114662-digest.reader-22bdccd3fa4-ddd4ec40dc81----0-102------------------62474da4_1586_4c36_bc86_c5b757f661dc-1

(snip)

I asked Mom, once, why she never became a nurse after the kids grew up. She sighed and said twelve-hour days had no appeal to her anymore. She did enough of those as a mother. I nodded. Understood.

What do you do then, with your pockets empty of dreams?

If you’re one of the lucky ones, you find a new dream.
Most people don’t.

They just fill their hours with television and routine. Know what the top regret of the dying is?

They wish they’d had the courage to live a life true to themselves instead of doing what other people expected them to.

I can’t die that way. I can’t.

But I don’t have to. Julia Child started cooking at 51. Laura Ingalls Wilder started writing the Little House books at 65. Grandma Moses didn’t pick up a paintbrush until she was 77.

I still work, because of divorce, inflation, and bills.

I still push the mawing beast, because houses don’t clean themselves.

And so I sit, typing as the sun sinks behind the old maple tree outside my window and wake with the robins to draw in the early morning light.

I may well die wishing I’d worked a little more.

I don’t know……

(snip)