Aging

Click on the cover to buy this book on amazon

Simply put, Cathryn Wellner’s book is saving me. I have been so scared and felt such a sense of hopelessness about my prospects I haven’t known what to do with myself. I have become so obsessed with the question, “How do I do meaningful work at my age and with my limitations so that I can feel useful, make much needed income, but not lose the benefits that I have that are essential to my survival?” that I have been frozen in time. If I couldn’t solve this nothing else seemed to matter. I have awoken every single morning filled with so much fear I have barely been able to move to start my day. Enough is enough!

Cathryn Wellner is an incredible writer and when I saw a mention of this book a few days ago I knew that I wanted to read it. This morning I bought it for my Kindle but have it open in the Kindle Cloud Reader in a tab on my browser and can’t stop reading it. It is a wake up call, it is helping me put things in perspective. I still don’t have the answer to the question in the first paragraph, but maybe I will by the time I finish the book.

When Cathryn wrote the following it gave me such a jolt it woke me up…

“The time comes when we realize we are past the halfway point in our lives. Bad days are a waste of our remaining hours on this beautiful planet.”

Gracious, yes. How many days am I going to wake up afraid of just being alive? I simply don’t have the time to waste, I don’t have that luxury, and, really, none of us do at whatever age we are. None of us.

One thing that I have to say about this book is that it is such a feast of riches. Reading it now I would also like to have the paperback book to carry around and refer to but the Kindle version has hyperlinks that take you all over the internet to books, periodicals, blogs, and other resources that are so incredible I cannot tell you how much I am being healed and opened up by them all. I was so deeply touched reading about a Japanese poet, Toyo Shibata, who published her first book of poems at 99, that I rushed to amazon to see the version that is in translation, “Don’t Lose Heart.” My heart sank when I saw that it is only available for $50 which I cannot afford, but I read everything available in Amazon’s preview, “Look Inside This Book.” I have just fallen in love with it.

And then I read the sentence that made me sit up straight! Cathryn wrote…

“When she began writing the books that would become one of the most successful children’s series of all times Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65.”

I will be 64 on Monday.

Story after story after story in this incredible collection of stories are about feisty people of advanced age accomplishing amazing things. I am in what feels like a terrifying place financially, but how can I let that stop me from pursuing my dreams? From giving what I have to give in the world? From writing what is in my heart to write? I simply cannot. I don’t begin to know how to solve the practical matters, but I know this, I might as well die right now if I’m not really going to live the rest of my life. There has to be an answer. And I am going to find out just what that is. And I won’t stop living, and I am going to try my utmost not to have the kind of bad days that cripple me.

In the excerpt from Toyo Shibata’s book I read in the Amazon preview she wrote…

“So no matter how alone or how lonely you are, there are always things to think about. That’s why I write that ‘life starts now, and morning will always come, no matter who you are.’

“Being on my own for twenty years, I am truly living!”

Next year I will have been on my own for 20 years. I have felt very alone, and been very lonely. But Toyo Shibata is right, there are always things to think about, there are loved ones and dear friends, there are my precious little pugs, there is my garden, and there is my writing, my heart connection to the world. I will continue on, I will find my way, and today, as soon as I get this blog post up, I am going back to reading Cathryn Wellner’s incredible book. I need to fill myself up with her stories so that I can have the courage to write my own. I have written since I was 9 years old. Through many years of childhood abuse it was writing that saved me. Through my entire adult life of marriage, motherhood, decades of therapy and healing work, and now in my 7th decade writing has been and is my way in the world. How could I not write what I have it in me to write? I will not let fear stop me. I will find my way.

Thank you dear Cathryn. Your book is saving me. And no, I don’t have time for bad days. I have work to do.

In closing I will share with you all a beautiful bouquet that I cut this afternoon, the result of pruning the rambling rose on the green fence. There is so much beauty here. We must live our lives…