Although I didn’t relish the 11-hour round-trip drive to pick my younger daughter up from camp, I was happy that I could split the trip up by staying with my sister in the city. My sister has preceded me down this 50 by 50 path (although she didn’t call it that) and has emerged out the other side as her own best self. She is an inspiration and I was reminded of this during my stay.
Her apartment is Zen-like in its beauty and simplicity…evidence of much “letting go” of un-needed and un-beautiful objects. And she has conquered the fitness “thing”, being fitter than ever before in her life and far more fit than I (although, that’s not hard these days!). She recommended a book that really got her going and I immediately ordered it and read ahead as far as I could in her copy while I was there. It’s called, Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge M.D.
Her de-cluttering was both more difficult than mine and easier. More difficult because there were times when she was forced to go through all of her belongings. She moved overseas for a few years and sold her house in the US. That was definitely a time of getting rid of old things. When she returned, she had a horrible flood in her garage where her stored belongings had just been delivered, and lost some things of little import and some things of tremendous sentimental and historical import. Those were the difficult times. Moving several times since then, she winnowed things out as she went, with the ultimate result of controlling her stuff instead of it controlling her.
Me, I’ve just never let go of anything and now I have 30 years of physical and emotional baggage to deal with. That is tough. And some things were destroyed by burst pipes, three times, during our renovation. That’s when decisions were made for me…and I don’t like to be so out of control. We did move out and back in again, but I’m afraid I didn’t get rid of a thing back then! I was clinging to my things as if to my life and each of those moves was sudden.
It was Christmas-time when we moved out. We had time off from work and were finally able to find a place to live…but we had all of 3 days to pack up and move. I anticipated having more time to move back in and get rid of some things in the process, but that was not to be. Before our home renovation was complete, our contractor sold the rental we were living in. We had to move back in as suddenly as we moved out! Additionally, while putting a new roof on our house, the builder moved all of our items stored in the attic first to one end of the attic, then to the other…hopelessly mixing things up and damaging some things in the process.
As I drove home, I didn’t feel very fit or younger. But that’s why I’m on this journey. It took us longer than usual to get out of the city and then things just seemed to poke along and my daughter dozed off and on. About four and a half hours after setting off, we stopped at a nice restaurant I knew about and had a real sit-down dinner instead of zipping through a fast food place. We both enjoyed our meals and I caught her up on all the twists and turns of a TV show that my daughters and I like to watch together.
Dinner was detour number one, and it turned out we had another ahead. It was about an hour and a half drive home, now in the dark. I don’t like driving in the dark because I have poor night vision. I can still see, but I see a lot of glare and it gives me a headache. I got off at the usual exit, but I must have missed the signs, due to focusing on the road, that the north-bound ramp was closed and we got dumped onto the state route going the wrong way. I could see a two mile back-up going north, so decided not to turn around and instead to go around…long way home, but I’d rather be driving than sitting in traffic!
And that is life. There are disappointments, unexpected losses, and many detours. Just like a home renovation project, you cannot predict how long things will take our how much they will cost. You have to use a rule-of-thumb, such as, everything will take twice as long and cost 20% more than expected.
If you keep that in front of you, you will be just fine and you will Enjoy the Journey.
Laura's Adventures After 50! 