Life
It’s no exaggeration to say that the older you get the more you start counting the summers. How many have I got left? How will I spend them? What do I want to do with my time?
I have a friend I greatly admire who is her own-self. She’s always marched to the beat of her inner drum, owned up and celebrated her weirdness - her uniqueness - and even when her choices haven’t turned out well, she’s never watered down her version of living and compromised or tried to become like anyone else. I feel like she’s turning the pages of her book very slowly, making sure she’s milked what’s written there.
It’s so easy to skip the boring days and the meh days, rushing to the weekend, to the holiday, to the end of the job. But each day, each summer, has something to notice and something to capture our attention. I know this is just mindfulness in different words and the wellness industry is awash with advice on how to live in the moment but the idea of reading our lives like we would read a book captures my imagination. No going back to remind ourselves of a great passage or check a character, just onwards, ever onwards to the great finale.
So I’m going to try and read my book slowly, with maximum attention, take notes, make note. Savour every word.
Hope you do too.
Go well.
Its uplifting to read a passage that has the capacity to arrest me from automatic pilot and rip me away from internal strife. Thank you. It reminds me of a wonderful conversation between husband and wife actors, Greg Hemphill and Julie Wilson Nimmo on a beach in Harris. It's during a show they do about Wild Swimming. Hope its OK to post this memorable clip. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qzuVatPXtPY
This is so true Kit. The analogy of not being able to turn back the page of a book made me think. What a luxury that is, which we take for granted. I've found since I hit 60 its been the worst of all for counting time. To think I used to dream of being this age as I did the boring daily commuter run! Yet here it is and I often feel like I'm on a running track trying so hard to fit 'it' all in before it's too late. Whatever 'it' is. And it is as many its as I can cram in. I only wrote this week that I feel like I'm running out of time like there is no tomorrow. And who indeed knows if we will have tomorrow. Funnily enough as I mindlessly counted down the timer on the air fryer last night, I thought then, 'well there are 15 more minutes of my life gone forever!'