One Hundred and Eighty One Days

Today begins the countdown, 181 days until the decade counter of my life turns over into another set of 10.  At age 50 I looked ahead to 60 and figured that I would be pretty much the same after 10 years. But, life is like a river, you can step into at the same place, but the river is never the same, it is always moving on. So, today, I step into that same river as I did at 50, and know the water is completely different. And at 70 – wow, I can’t even contemplate it. So, I will deal with only the next 6 months.  October 2014 through April 2015. I think there is enough happening in that time period to keep me busy.

Fall will glide into winter, and the winter holidays will rush at me, full of twinkling lights, tinsel, family gatherings and rich food. A number of family birthdays will turn the counting clock for relatives and friends. New Year’s resolutions and tax returns will compete for attention, and the yearly health insurance enrollment period will raise its complicated and ugly head. And those are only the standard yearly occurring events. What else will squeeze itself into the calendar? The only certainty of it is uncertainty — the way that life likes to twist and turn without warning signals, and sometimes without brakes.

October, I face you first. You, the month of falling leaves, frost and Halloween.  The month that signals the coming end of the year, yet fills me with a sense of purpose and renewal. During this time I make more future plans and crave more changes and improvements than at any other time of the year. And this year, October, you hold more than your usual inspiration. You hold a lifetime of ambition, hopes and dreams in your short 31 days. Your days bring optimism in still-warm sunshine, and warn of lethargy in your darkening afternoons. To you, I assign the task of gatekeeper, swinging open to embrace my torrent of thoughts, plans and impossibilities. I expect you to swing the gate closed as the last Jack O’Lantern goes dark. Then, to November goes the task of sweeping up behind that gate, making neat piles of my scattered thoughts, placing them carefully along the path that leads to spring in April.

The countdown begins today.