A New Decade

What happened to the last year?  The year I was 49?  The year I could still see myself as in my “productive years.”  Well, clearly, I was AWOL.  Not a blog post to be found.  I am aware of  a self within me who boycotted this project and diverted me from the computer each time I was struck with a notion.  I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything.  I think I spent last year being mostly a question mark:  what now?  And blogs generally run on answers.

So, what now:  I turned 50 this summer and feel an unexpected ease with that.  While I hope to live a long time, somehow I feel like I completed a race and can just walk now, and notice things.  What a relief!  I spent most of my life believing I needed to accomplish and achieve and amount to…well…more.  I imagine I’m not done with those aims, but they are not so compelling anymore.  I find myself drawn to presence rather than future goals, and I like it.

Four years ago, after quitting my regular job and beginning my work as coach and consultant, I had no idea how my risk would pay off.  Fortunately for me, much of  the pay has been in currency I didn’t anticipate–garlic, for example, that I had time to plant and nurture, and lopsided pottery I learned to throw, which I could sell to lopsided lollygaggers outside the nearby fair grounds.  Who knew I’d become so artsy?   And the best pay off has been new friendships I wouldn’t have made had I stayed on the hamster wheel.  Really interesting people seem to be drawn to the entrepreneurial life, I think.

So forgive me if you’ve dropped in on this blog over the past twelve or more months and found little to graze on.  I’ll try to set that right.  Now that I’m 50, I have so much more to say; but I also am more likely to go pick the cucumbers or deadhead the hydrangeas than compose a blog post.