Post #4 The season is changing but not quite yet.
Many of us Baby Boomers are in a changing season of our lives.
The season is changing but not quite yet.
The snow is gone. The grass is brown and low to the ground just cut by winter’s barber. The birds are chirping louder than from yesterday. The trees are barren and crisp. The grey wooden sticks of the hedges which don’t have year-round green on them are standing up tall with the sun shining on them proudly showing off that they too are there, seemingly feeling underappreciated, knowing they are as important as the green shrubbery we normally admire the rest of the year.
It is cold but not that cold. Winter is still here, but while I cannot feel spring in the air, I can almost see it. I look for vestiges of new green sprouts coming up from the garden beds but of course they are not there yet. It is too early. But I can almost feel them under the ground, trying to wake up, starting to take off their warm and cozy blanket of dirt, not really wanting to get up, hitting their snooze button one more time, knowing there will most likely be one more snowfall coming and needing to stay in their beds.
The season is changing but not quite yet.
That is probably how it feels to many Baby Boomers right now, too, depending on how old you are or at what stage of life you are at. You may be at the beginning of the end of your working life, knowing your life will be changing soon, but you are not quite there yet. Or you may have left that world and if lucky, are fully retired and relatively healthy, so you can get up a little later, relax in the mornings, do some interesting activities in the afternoon, enjoy relaxing evenings with your spouse or friends, and travel whenever and wherever you want.
Enjoy it.
Or, you may be like the grasses, in that middle ground, where you still are functioning and getting around, maybe working and playing some, but are also struggling with a disease or a general wearing out, feeling that you are in that limbo land between being old, and being really old. Or, you may start becoming that picture you had in your head all these years of what old is, seeing your grandmother or great-grandmother in your mind’s eye, knowing you won’t ever be taking another long trip, knowing you won’t again be engaged in an exciting project, or maybe even knowing you aren’t going to get out of the house that much anymore. But still, hopefully, enjoying the little things in life; the laugh of a child, the sweet taste of a good fruit, the beauty of the sky outside your window.
The season is changing, but not quite yet.
For all of us.