My Fourteen Year Plan

I have increasing relied upon one truth: the better I understand the truth, the better I can say the truth, and the better I can see the truth, the better person I am, and the better my writing is.

So it sucks that the truth is I’m such an odd ball! I don’t fit in very well; always been a bit set aside. That’s okay; I’m used to it – it’s just the way it is. (I’ve never meant harm to a single soul, so I think, I’m good, right?)

But then there’s that whole “fitting in” problem. Sigh.  Chuckle! (Ya gotta laugh, right?)

Such a conundrum! I have a heart bred for loving, filled with compassion, the essence of hope. A soul burdened, held down. A spirit that thrives, sometimes barely, but always persisting. A willingness, born of love, to give anything, do anything, die even, for any one person that I love. (And I am so blessed to have so many people to love!)

And I could no more sit down with them and feel loved than I could dance across the mountains on the moon. 

I am an island, I guess, after all, try I might to be otherwise.

In the meantime, of course, I’m still falling down and gathering scars, trying this and that, finding this treasure and that one, this wound and that pain. Trying to live in the present, and in the present, to understand this confusion, this truth.

And time goes by, my plans of before now dust, a few desperate sprigs of hope the only evidence of my caring, of my giving, of my loving along the way.

And I feel a little bit wasted, not drunk, ya know, but wasted effort, like trying to block the ocean.

With a kids shovel and a bucket.

Time whispers past my ears like the Spring wind through the trees.

My friend of seventy lies home, waiting to feel better to come to me, so we can go off into the mountains as we have so many times before. I begin to wonder if he’ll ever come, ever be well again. (I think I will go to him, perhaps). But the truth that resounds in my ears, is that he never drank, he never smoked, and he was always much active than I have been, and seventy seems to be the point that he’s just too worn out to do what he wants.

He can’t do what he wants to, and he’s seventy. I’m fifty-six. So maybe, if I’m lucky, I have fourteen years to do what I want, and that’s it. Then I’ll have to do what I can from a more limited situation, and I don’t like that. Not a bit. I want more time. I want to do EVERYTHING! I want to experience EVERYTHING! I want to understand EVERYTHING!

But I can’t. I can only choose a thing, or two, maybe. One of them, I would choose, is to know how to feel the love that my friends and family so freely give. But really, I think it would be a waste of time. I can say it. I can think it. I can notice it. But I don’t really feel it, like there’s a shell around me that keeps any love from sinking in. (It kinda sucks really, wish I knew how to change it).

And beyond that, I just don’t want to waste any life. It’s such a cool thing to walk down a trail on a mountainside fresh with the morning’s dew and fragrant with the smell of pine and wild flowers. It’s a thrill to see a granddaughter grow into adulthood, a grandson to be born into this world, a son, a daughter, both making good. It's exciting to make technology work, to create a new something. It’s sweet to know the smile of a neighbor or friend who cares if the lights are on, or if there’s food in the fridge, or if my heart’s doing okay.  

And I don’t know what else to do. 

But tomorrow’s opening day (though where I fish it's open year round). The jeans I wore last summer won’t button, having shrunk, (I guess!) So I am hiking down to Warwoman Creek tomorrow, perhaps in the rain, and fishing. And noticing how spring comes to these mountains, maybe getting wet. And maybe, these answers will come to me (or maybe not).

Maybe they’ll come to me as I catch my breath at the top of a steep mountain incline. Maybe I’ll just understand the question(s) better. Maybe nothing will happen, except catching a bunch of trout.

(I always catch trout!)

So, for this minute, that’s my fourteen year plan.

What’s yours?