TIME

This little feather has been blowing around my patio for the last couple of days. This morning I went outside with the dogs and it was still there, wedged in a corner. I picked it up and placed it on the table, hoping to get a picture of it, but it kept blowing away. I tried holding it, but couldn't get the right angle holding the camera with one hand. Finally I gave up and walked away. A bit later I came back and noticed the feather was still on the table. I held my breath, picked up my camera, and got this shot.

Lately I have been thinking increasingly more about time. The past, present and future. There are so many changes going on in my life, but so often I feel like I am stagnant. Immobile. All the while, time is blowing away much as this feather did. I have so many things I want to do, want to achieve, want to accomplish, but something inside of me has changed and I don't know how or why. Things I wanted before, I don't any longer. And things I never wished for in the past, I long for now. And as I struggle with these thoughts, time just passes by, and I know with all of my heart that time is precious.

I have lived a very wonderful life. I have been gifted with so much that I really have nothing to yearn for. I can look back at my younger years and then those years newly married, having children, making a home and though I have many regrets, they all came with huge lessons learned. And as glorious and perfect as one's life can appear on the outside, there are stories that can be told that are far from all appearances.

I have heard that the reason elderly people talk so much about the past is because that is where they want to be. Their glory days. The days of love and sun and sand. This is not to say that we can't grow old happily, we just tend to forget the bad and languish in the good. And lately I have been doing a lot of that because I just don't know what the next chapter of my life will be like. I am not afraid to turn that proverbial page, it just feels as if I have only so many more pages to fill in and I don't know what to write. I don't know where to start.

I have lived such a great life. I have had so many passions. For family and friends. For cooking and gardening and reading and writing. The love I have for my four children is almost too much to hold in my heart! I am filled with gratitude. Those years raising them and being a wife, yes, there are some pages I would definitely erase if I could. But mostly I think I did a pretty good job and jumped over many more cracks than the ones I could have fallen in to.

However something had changed inside of me and it has been gradual. It has just reached the point where I seem to be doing more self~examination than I do taking action. Of course, most of you know I am facing the empty nest as I droned on about in a post a few months ago. Bu this is bigger than that. And yes, it involves what I want to do with my life now, but foremost, what happened to the old me?

I came to the lake for these two weeks with a long mental list of all the things I wanted to do and take care of. I wanted to spend a lot of time outdoors, something I don't do much of at home. The Husband asks if I want to take a boat ride and I usually have an excuse like the weather is crappy or that I'd rather just chill on the patio. I have yet to go on the wave runners, just a little bit of intimidation by these huge powerful machines and the fact that The Husband rides pretty fast and I waver between keeping up with him or losing him. (Losing him where??). Cooking. I was going to try some great new recipes for healthy meals and salads and bake some not so healthy desserts. I have a new kitchen after all. And I was going to spend some time organizing this new kitchen. Do you remember moving in to a new house and being so excited to arrange and decorate a room just how you imagined or planned? And I was going to work in that big old English garden of mine, weeding, trimming and planting more perennials. Put trellis's up and start to train my wisteria to climb. And with paint and supplies already bought, start on several make~over projects. And I was going to READ! And I did not set my sights too high, I only brought along two books.

I have less than a week left of my vacation and I have not done one of these things.

A friend of mine that lives up the road, someone I have known for eighteen years, came by the other day. She said, "Blondie, what has happened to you?". She wasn't being rude, she is very straightforward and that is what I love about her. And I wanted to cry. She said, "Before, when I would come down here, I would find you working in your garden or painting the bathroom. Just look at you!" And I did. Same old T shirt and shorts, no make up and hair in a ponytail. The good old five minute get~up~and~go mode. And I had been sitting in a rocker near the window, just staring out, drinking coffee most of the morning. I confessed to her that I didn't know where the old Blondie had gone. It seems she has faded away. I make all my plans, but do I really care enough to complete them? Is it possible that all the things I used to love to do no longer matter to me anymore? Have I lost interest? If so, what will replace these passions? What will fill my days? What will fill my time now that I have less years ahead of me than behind?

Another friend of mine stopped by last night and we talked for quite awhile. I asked her if this might be a phase. She said, "Blondie, this is now...you are being still. You want to be still. Accept it and move on when you are ready."

I think that was good advice. It doesn't completely ease my mind or answer the relentless questions. But the fact that I am asking the questions is putting it out there. I do have pages and pages more to write. But right now, maybe I am like that beautiful swan feather, just blowing gently in the wind. Waiting for a safe place to land.

I took all of these pictures of our beautiful swans and their babies this morning near my beach. They bless us every summer with their wonderful presence.

xoxo

Jane