The Birthday of Reflection

It has come and gone. Someone asked me on Friday if I felt older. Since we had just finished a week of summer school at a church camp, I answered that I felt wiser and stiffer. Does that equal older? I am really paddling madly down the river named Denial about the fact that I am well into midlife. Midlife, indeed. Apparently I plan to live well into my hundreds! It's not so much that I mind getting older. It's the whole "time running out" thing that's freaking me out. I have so much I want to do, and learn, and become! I know some of my angst has to do with being a late bloomer. I didn't really figure out what I wanted to do with my life until I was in my forties and I'm paying off my student loans when I should be saving for retirement. The whole discernment and ordination adventure happened after the mid-century mark. So at a place when some of my peers are thinking about slowing down and retiring, I seem to be picking up speed and adding new things to my already full plate. Fortunately, if a bit strangely, I seem to have a lot more energy now than I did when I was younger. These new adventures seem to have infused me with new life. I do feel a bit out of sync with the calendar, or to be more accurate, maybe with what I think I should feel like "at my age."

Time does go way too fast though. There are too many things to do and far too little time to do them. And far too little time to do nothing as well. To just sit and be. I am always feeling pulled to the next task and the next. And then there is my list. The list of the things I want to accomplish in this lifetime. And it just keeps getting longer. It would help if I were not interested in so many things. If I were more of a specialist than a generalist. Or if there were fewer books in the world that I wanted to read. Or if I could learn to live without sleep. But there it is, and now and then something goes off and something else comes on. I really would hate to leave this world without doing the following: playing the cello, speaking fluent Spanish, seeing Ireland and England (and hearing a sung Evensong at Canterbury), spending some time doing mission work somewhere, playing Mother Superior in the Sound of Music (Community Theatre version), having a book published...and it goes on. This year's goal is the cello! And keeping the blog alive, and being a little better at relationship maintenance in the non-virtual world as well (I stand accused), and making a dent in the crate of books beside the bed. Once I promised I would read all the books I had before buying any more. I was young and foolish then. I am much older and wiser now!