EARLY or LATE, life is a series of stages
Saturday March 11, 2023
Aging is a staging thing, a series of performances.
Things work naturally, as they should. Like motors motoring. As blenders blend, as friends befriend. These are the same, aren’t they?
Undergoing transition – phase to phase – one stage of living to the next- seems normal. When discussing shifting from one stage of aging also to a stage of dying seems so negative at first - but when you think it through, isn't every stage of life from our birth part of the progressions toward the end of the line? These lives we each inhabit daily will end one day - an inevitable reality we would all like to deny, or at least defy and delay - to recognize long before we get very old. And this adds a sense of urgency and a need for clarity with every new or different step we take on ...
I watched up close for years. My dad’s death nine years ago brought that into sharp focus for me– that I have no entitlement to living long and well.
While I must keep myself healthy and out of harm’s way, in all other respects, life is about taking chances, chance, luck, and serendipity ~ not my mind over matter.
It isn’t about having the will to live as much as having the will not to die.
Life stages keep unfolding every day for all of us until this show is over, and when it’s over, we can’t fix anything that we’ve done, but we can control what we do next, what we do today and what we’ll do tomorrow.
While this show goes on, we need to fix things, not walk through an exercise of going through the motions. Still, we could strut proudly, not to show off for anyone, but to show ourselves as we are capable of – and when we do, we are surprised, but we can do it when we test ourselves while pushing ourselves.
Those who’ve come before and given us life deserve no less from us. That’s true for me to honour my father and his father, too – to respect their memory, lives and work ethic. Like most people, they didn’t change the world; they did their best to work hard to be there for and provide for their families.
Looking back, we can see it more clearly, because time and distance add more perspective while taking away what never mattered so much – those things and feelings that obscured truth and purpose, to see ourselves as others see us – completely imperfect people moving through the chapters and stages of life.
… and, by the way, yesterday’s trip to Banff was a wonderful escape from a typical work day – disconnected and better connected and we recommend Tooloulou’s restaurant – crab cakes and flatbread for Hazel, and I had the seafood gumbo on dirty rice jambalaya – the perfect meal after a great time at the Upper Hot Springs – always more fun if you rent the vintage swimsuits.
Reader feedback:
Hope you are having a lovely day in the mountains and good on ya for the planned changes!, SC, Chestermere, AB