I have had my double-dose of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine! It has made me feel safe enough to get on a plane and fly to Texas to visit my children and grandchildren who I had not seen in a year! It has been a great trip including a road trip with my dear friend, Duane, bestie since Kindergarten!
As I prepare to fly back home to my retreat in the mountains of southern California, I am ready to reopen my retreat and welcome the hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail who are trekking from Mexico to Canada for the next six months. One year ago I closed my gates, learning that California was going into a “thing called lockdown” on my 70th birthday. Next week I celebrate 71 with the reopening exactly one year later.
The year of the pandemic was many things to many people…Pandemic: WorldWide! Everyone was touched by this virus in some way. I feel like I am one of the lucky ones who escaped with only the personal connection to a few who were hospitalized and suffered lasting ill effects. My 94-year old father is one of those and I happily report he is slowly recovering…although I don’t think any of us recover from being 94!
I feel so fortunate to live in a remote place where I am able to greatly limit my exposure. For me, 2020 was a year of isolation which turned out to be a good thing. I had plenty of time to miss my loved ones and realize what is most important to me. I had plenty of time to consider my life, my priorities and to choose what I want to do with the time and resources I have left to me in this lifetime.
2020 was a year of reckoning as I turned 70 and for the first time acknowledged my own mortality. I am not going to live forever! Really? Yup, that is the fact, Chery. And if you are lucky, you have about twenty years to live your dreams and go and do all the things that call to you.
I am telling myself daily to feel the gratitude for this life I’ve been given and get off my arse and spend time with the people I love and don’t wait to do the things that are calling to me. Time won’t wait and I only have the present moment to live this life fully and when I put my head down for the last time it can be said of me, “She did not die an unlived life…she did not live forever, but she lived!”
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