This is the richest of my times, this sixth decade. It is so different than any other in so many ways, and so stunningly bare of all of the material securities I spent so many years striving for, collecting up, and trying to protect to carry with me into a "secure retirement."

They're all gone, stripped away by life circumstances over which I had no control. Oh, that was a very hard loss: a very fearful time. Yet it lead me to this, the richest of my times.

My window looks out over treetops that stand guard over an ordinary neighborhood and a high school. On crisp fall mornings, I am delighted by the sounds of the marching band, and the "Hoo Ho Hoos!!" of a football team working out. The energies of these youth reach me up here, feed me, give me hope for us all.

My writing room holds me in it's embrace, everything I need is at my fingertips, and time..free,avaialble amd glorious time to write surrounds me every day now. No more need to shoke it all back till another less busy day. Oh this is the richest of my times.

I cannot fathom why some feel sorry for me just because I am a disabled older women living without a lot of "stuff", I simply cannot. I have all I want of the very thing I see them yearning for the most. Time. Freedom to choose what comes into my days. Freedom to think, ponder, dream, explore, create, learn, share,live, and simply "be" .I've got it all now.

I have laid down the burden of "stuff", and I can't tell you what joy this has brought to me. No one can take what isn't there. You cannot lose what is already gone, so there is no more to fear. There is no possession requiring me to make payments via selling my soul and my time and my skills to any "company store": that awful stress is gone now, for the rest of my days. Along with the "right" of any other human being to tell me what to do or how to do it. Not one day goes by without reveling in the sheer sweetness of the freedom of all of this.

Gone too, is my lifelong yearning for the approval or validation of others. Who knew what a slavedriver this need really is; how it controls and dictates so many of our decisions? Only now, when I feel the full relaxation of no longer needing this, can I see how vast a driving force force that was.

Nor do I miss my tunnel vision: my narrower views of things that made me see black and white only, when in reality, there are so many georgeous shades in between. My view now is more wide angle: not only can I still see the individual houses and people and trees, but I can also see the villages and countrysides. Incredible how a wider lens can shift ones perceptions, and how seeing the softer shadings can sooth a fiery mind, stilling the need to believe one is always possessed of the "right answers" to anythng. How wonderful to be able to say "I don't know!" without shame or sense of inadequacy.

Another undreamed of wonder is the awsome changes I feel "in relationships" with my loved ones and friends and yes,even strangers. How much easier it is now, to let go of the need to evaluate and judge, or try control or change others. I see now they they are simply on their own life paths, learning their own lessons their own way, just as did I.

Somehow, I can see past the parts of them that rub against me, to the larger view of all the unqiueness and wonder that they indeed are, all on their own. Best of all, I am learning how to accept thier love in the form each can freely offer, rather than moaning about not getting it in the exact form "I'd" like it to be. As well, I am finally learning how to offer them my love, with "no strings attached" at all.

Now about the physical aspect of aging: yes, it is a challenge, in this youth and beauty worshipping culture of ours, to see the inevitable signs of the aging of the body. It's not like that in all cultures, where aging is seen as the sign of a successful life, and elders are resepected and honored members of society.

Here, we tend to end up in places like the one from where I am writing, out of sight, out of mind, so we don't get in the way of "progress" or provide too visible a reminder that in spite of botox, everyone is going to age!

But this IS my culture, like it or not, thus I have to work at my acceptance of my own body's changes, consciously. I do this by honoring every part of this ol body, that has faithfully carried me through thick and thin, no matter how I neglected and abused it for a lifetime. I see the wrinkles on my hands, AND I see the thousands of bodies they have tended and cared for in my nursing career. I see the thinning of the skin, the shrinking of the muscles, AND I think about all the work they have done over 65 years.Then, somehow, the wrinkles become more like victory lines....

In any lifetime, we plant so many seeds, tend so many fields. The fruits of those labors are a often a long time coming, but harvest time truly does come, if we are still here and willing to welcome it.

So go ahead and fear growing old, it's almost impossible not to in this culture. But as it draws closer, do it anyway. Do it with the willful intention that it can and will be one of the richest of times for you, too.

Do it with eyes wide open to the intangible, incredible wonders of a life deeply and fully explored and experienced: something we often have no time to do when in the busy younger years.

Thank you for providing a space for me to share this richest of my times.

Now...ONward!