A little Older, a little Wiser?

A little late with my recap of 2017 but that’s ok since there are really only 20 of you reading this. It’s only January 5th. As I relax in my writing chair listening to epic music and rifling down corn and carrots from yesterday’s dinner I can’t help but reflect on the past year. It went by in a blur and yet…. not.

Time rushes by like a river on its way down a mountain and it feels like you’d better not waste a moment or you’ll never catch up In this life. And at other times it feels so slow -a turtle wading through molasses – that we tend to wish time away and waste all the moments.

When I think about the passing of 365 days, it’s almost scary. 2017 began with me employed at a job I cherished. Andrew living in another city trying to make his way. Our dear Hawaii friends pursuing a new adventure in their tropical existence. I was going to move through the passage of age as I hit 60 this year and mom ripened to 85. I was full of hope and promise, as was life, or so it seemed. Same house, same cars, same habits, same loves, same faith, same friends, same family.

I had this strange sense of anticipation for the coming year. I took down the Christmas decorations and plowed through winter. I was making pasta weekly with my new pasta maker. Lexie won 10 box seat tickets to a Flames game in January, which we invited several of our friends to and just had A blast. I was back in the routine of going to the office gym at 5:30 in the morning for an invigorating workout 3x a week. Mike remodelled our kitchen island and it was, and is, grand. I started to collect cookbooks from the clearance table at chapters and was trying my hand at all kinds of delicacies that I’ve always yearned to prepare. This upon the recommendation of my favorite new author. I received a book of hers as a Christmas gift, read it 3x over as it reverberated with my soul and proceeded to buy her other 4 books and read them twice each over the spring. Also at this authors inspiration, i finally started the blog I’d  been talking about for 5 years and was finding great satisfaction having an outlet for my writing and the thoughts that had been duking it out in my brain for years.

Then on March 28th at 10:00 am I was called into the main floor board room to be informed of my redundancy. It wasn’t the hugest of surprises since the company was going through layoffs anyway and several of the people I work for were let go and yet, when it happens to you, no matter how prepared you think you are for it, it just feels like rejection. I know I have a rejection scar from a prior incident many years ago and every time something like this happens, the bandaid is ripped off again and you forget how much it stings. Very much like going on an interview only to find out that they chose somebody else time and time again. I have a determination not to let these things bother me and yet they do, every time. I hope and pray I’ll get stronger each time but I’m not so sure that is what’s happening.

Then my son realized he needed to come home to a more supportive environment shortly after I was unemployed. So the two of us spent the summer feeling useless, like failures and making each other crazy. I decided to take up walking two hours a day to clear my mind, raise my good cholesterol, sort through my next steps and hear from God. It was invigorating and healing. I felt like I’d been born again.

I did experience a wonderful distraction via a vacation with my mom, my daughter and my sisters for mom’s 85th birthday. We escaped our humdrum lives and met up in Las Vegas which turned out to be a vacation to be remembered for all time. In the same way conditions merge to form the perfect storm, circumstances merged to form the perfect vacation. The perfect remembrance. The perfect girls holiday. The perfect way to celebrate mother.

By mid summer our Hawaii friends were up to their eyeballs in cancer. I may as well not floss over it. One of mikes best friends, is still fighting and hanging on by a thread. He’s been walking in a miraculous remission for 9 years and we’ve shared so many memories, good times, laughs, tears, and friendship with these folks. Naturally we are still praying and hoping for a miracle but our faith has been thin enough to see through at times.

Come September a friend of a friend referred my pie making skills to a family that were celebrating the lives of both their parents at the same time. These fine folks decided to make their way to heaven together. And to honour their mom’s memory the children wanted to find someone who could duplicate her apple pie and butter tarts to serve at the joint service which was attended by 450. That’s a lot of pastry folks. I passed the trial bakeoff and was given the green light for 70 pies and 30 dozen butter tarts. Being a part of this celebration of life changed my life in so many ways.

By now, my son was working so I had the house to myself most of autumn, and passed my time baking in my remodelled kitchen. I also decided I was invincible in the baking arena and offered out my services for Christmas baking. Who knew this was going to be as popular as medicinal (legalized) maraquana.

I successfully completed the Whole 30 this summer. That was an enlightening, victorious experience. Since then I’ve been on the Half 60, which doesn’t do a thing btw.

I guess I would be remiss if I left out my 60th birthday. I didn’t think turning 60 was going to be any big emotional deal until my daughter, thinking it would be funny and that I had a sense of humour that could take it , put up a sign on the morning of my birthday that read ‘holy shit you’re old”. Much to even to my surprise, I had a negative reaction. It may have been the redundancy thing. It may have been both adult children living at home (feeling like my style had been cramped). It may have been the whiskey, could have been the gin. All I know is I was a mess until the pink limousine pulled up the following Saturday morning to take me to a birthday luncheon fit for a queen.

So there you have it. I’m still trying to make sense of many circumstances I found myself in this past year. Some of these incidents seem to be related somehow and others are just a mystery at the moment. Maybe forever. The year has been a combination of victory and growth as well as confusion and pain but somehow I have this feeling the confusion and pain is going to turn into victory and growth as time goes by.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Philippians 3

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