It may be that it is almost the middle of February and the length of winter in Vermont is beginning to push in on me. Maybe it is that, even though the sun is shining today, over the last four months or so there have been more gray days than sunny days. Maybe it is because it is still dark when I get up in the morning and the shades are pulled and the lights are turned on well before we sit down for dinner.
But maybe it is something more.
Maybe it is because at the age I am, this sense of sadness is just a part of life as it is.
Sadness over the loss of friends and loved ones who laughed with me and grew up with me and walked alongside me. Sadness over the all to regular news of cancer or stroke or illness of friends and loved ones who are my age. Sadness as I grapple to come to terms with the reality that life is finite. That my life is finite.
This is not about regrets.
Or a lack of gratitude.
Or some sense of anger or resentment.
This sadness is something different.
Something I have not felt in this way before.
As I live with it and, today try to put words around it
I wonder if maybe sadness is a cousin to gratitude.
I will have to sit with that thought for a while.
In the meantime
I will put on my shoes and walk through town with my dog.
And a bit later, I will meet a friend and we will spend a couple hours skiing together.
And later still, I will sit down to dinner with my wife and before we eat we will reach our hands across the dining room table and say Thank you.
Thank you for the day.
Thank you for each other and for the time and opportunities we have.
Thank you for our family and friends.
Thank you.
And alongside our thank you we will remember.
Phil Franz says
February 20, 2023 at 5:53 pmPaul, I hope you are getting ready! Remember March 17 is just a month away! I have a pair of bright orange sneakers that I wore last year and I was told only once to go to hell! Your Prostestant Buddy, Phil PS Yesterday was our first Sunday with our new Minister> It all went very well!! I think we are in for a goog time.
Anne Bentzen says
March 20, 2023 at 4:29 pmI know my life is finite. But I also know that what I think and focus on has a powerful effect on my health and my longevity (besides nutrition and exercise). Our thoughts are energy and they are also choices. We cannot change the past. The world is changing so fast. Pre-pandemic life seems more than just 3 years ago. We can, however, influence the future with our consciousness and where we decide to focus our thoughts.
My 1st cousin, Caroline, at age 90 just buried her second husband. It is a struggle but she is determined to have a vote in the 2024 election and to continue to be of service by her presence on the planet. Caroline is an ordained, Unitarian minister as was her 2nd husband.
I believe we must do our best to focus on creating a more loving future from this present NOW moment and put all the heart energy we can muster into feeling what a better world will feel like for our children and their children’s children. I want to create more joy for tomorrow. Though today may be full of extremes, I am envisioning a kinder, fairer, more humanitarian world by the time our grandsons both named Logan graduate from Elementary school, MS or HS. How fast the world changes is up to us.