Another year gone

In many ways it's hard to believe that I have been blogging long enough to be writing about yet another birthday, but it's true. I went back and read last year's post and I see that I have not done too well on the things I planned to accomplish this year. The cello remains unlearned, my Spanish is as rusty as ever, and the pile of books in the crate beside the bed has, if anything, grown rather than diminished, thanks at least in part to suggestions from some of you. In many ways it seems kind of like I just had that birthday. But in other ways, in some pretty important ways, I guess it seems like a very, very long time ago. Because a lot has happened in the last year. This blog has captured big pieces of it, important pieces of what was going on while I was not learning Spanish or the cello or reading the books in the crate. I don't think I would characterize this as the kind of year for those kinds of pursuits. Perhaps the coming year will be better suited to such things. Who knows? Time will tell.

I was a little worried about this birthday. The first one single in lots and lots of years. I wondered if it would be a contender for The Worst Birthday Ever. It would, I thought have to go some, as that one was a real whopper! I was in graduate school and working full time. My mother was in a nursing home and not doing well. My significant other at the time was shall we say, challenging....and was spending my birthday in the psych ward. What with one thing and another, I had forgotten to pay the electric bill, and sure enough...on my birthday...I came home from work to find the power shut off! So I took myself out to dinner at a place that had really good salads and THE most decadent flourless chocolate cake, and went home and read by candlelight till bedtime. Yeah, it was pretty fun!

I have full power today! And am feeling loved and cared for. There have been cards and e-mails and fun little gifts (including a floating frog thermometer for the hot tub from Soul Sister C). And this morning at the end of the service as I dismissed the congregation they all turned and sang Happy Birthday, complete with organ accompaniment! We then retired to the undercroft where I was feted with chocolate cheesecake and punch and given a baby rosebush!

The rest of the day has been intermittently Sabbathy. I have done little of use or note and that is just fine with me. After preaching a sermon that was way up there on the personal testimony, and thus scariness scale for me, I was pretty wiped out. I thought about nappage, but couldn't really settle into sleeping. So I putzed. I did manage to take the trash out and run a few bags to the Goodwill. I've been catching up on blog reading, and messed around with my recalcitrant printer until I wanted to start pitching it through the window. I think the hot tub is in the future later this evening. Maybe I'll make a dent in a book in that crate...or just watch HGTV. I'm thinking about carryout for dinner....I don't want to cook, and I'm thinking something tasty made by others is sounding good! Or on the other hand, there's always a bagel!

So there it is, another one of those firsts when you do that separation thing, sucessfully negotiated.

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!