Always here.
Looking for . . .

I’ve been busy this week. And when I get busy – even when it’s busy with fun and pleasurable things (which this week has been mostly filled with), I tend to . . . compartmentalize. It’s my coping strategy, I guess you could say. In order to focus my efforts on whatever it is I need to focus on, I put all the other things . . . aside for awhile. To be dealt with later. Anyway. It’s been a busy time, a busy week.

Yesterday was my birthday.

I quietly (as is my preference) turned 64.
(And, yeah. Tom did sing me that Beatles song.) (Because you sorta have to . . . when you’re 64.)

(Birthday selfie.)

And, as I am wont to do, I spent some time reflecting. On birthdays. And getting older. And how life just keeps shifting. And what my purpose might be . . . now that I’m 64.

You see, over the last chunk of years, I’ve been struggling to figure out that “purpose” thing for myself. I used to have one. But things changed. I changed. I moved from being a contributing (in a paid-work sense) member of society who had always had “important,” meaningful jobs . . . to someone who is “just at home now.” I moved from being an “active” mom with kids to shepherd and “guide” . . . to becoming a mom of fully-launched and completely independent, grown-up children. I moved from having a mother myself . . . to becoming someone who is responsible for her dad.

It’s been . . . a lot.

But I think I’ve finally gotten through that process, for the most part. I am getting closer to accepting where I am NOW, who I am. It’s been kinda hard, but I’m becoming content with letting that old “striving,” high-wire life I used to live . . . go. I’m finding peace with just . . . letting things unspool in a more relaxed way these days.

So here’s where the hope comes in. At this stage of my life, I hope to more actively embrace joy and peace and contentment . . . where I am. For myself. But also, by extension, for those I encounter.

Life is hard.
There is so much shit going on in the world right now.
I can’t do much to change that or influence anything. But I CAN . . . try to bring some kind of goodness and light into my very small sphere.

I think that’s my purpose now. In a shitty world, I can bring my little light. I can shine it for myself. And maybe it will spill out around me a little bit, too.

That’s my hope, anyway.

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Here’s to a good weekend.
See you Monday!