Life is Short

I didn’t have a valentine yesterday. I was married on Valentine’s Day 33 years ago but my life has changed drastically. Since that time, I've been single for one year less than I was legally wed, though our courtship started a few years prior to the day we tied the knot. We were inspired to make our relationship legal by a near death experience; mine. Life is short, we concurred, and we could never be sure that time was truly on our side. We grew fat and lazy in our complacency; we became comfortable in our ability to overcome first world problems. When disaster struck, we were as unprepared as waltzing partners on the ballroom floor of the Titanic. It took years for me to recover from the avalanche of shocks and revelations. I was often mistaken for a nurse because for over a year, I was an instinctive caregiver, learning more about the foibles of the human body than I’d ever cared to know about. But I rolled with the punches and I am good now. I live a solo life, involved in extended family, and with no desire to find a partner. That phase of my life is over. But it doesn't give me any more time than I was allowed before. I'm still running circles around myself.

Currently, I'm witnessing a dear friend go through similar motions as I did twenty years ago. Her husband’s illness is completely self-inflicted but the end results are similar. I can reach out and lend support but more than anything, I’m here, for venting, ranting, weeping, hugging, listening. I know the importance of having people shut up and simply BE THERE. Bottom line, that’s what friends really are for. It’s also nice to have someone to go with to movies, shopping at Nordstrom, and splitting a bottle of wine or two. 

However, I’ve found the most important part of a friend is his or her ears. And sometimes… shoulder. Many of us find that making time to lend an ear isn’t always easy. We all have busy lives, but to hear a friend say they’re too busy; don’t have enough time can be like a blunt needle in your side; it hurts. If we have time for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we have time for a phone call, or a lunch date.

In the past year I've lost some friends and we all witnessed shocking deaths of famous people we admired and loved, many gone far too soon. Let’s make time for one another until the day comes when all we have left are memories.

Thanks for reading. 

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Inventory

Sixty. I don’t feel sixty. Nor, have been told, look sixty. But the facts are there, in black and white, on parchment paper and family bibles.
I have not accomplished my life dream and though I realize many go out without even knowing what their true purpose in life is, I am not one of them.
However, to begin the course for my next chapter of living, I have some tasks to accomplish.
Today I will begin the process of elimination. That is: eliminating things I have collected and schlepped around over the decades. I must sort and dust and decide.
There are… photos albums and overflowing boxes of images that begged to be catalogued and will now be purged. Dishes: crystal, china, silver, plates, mugs and ceramic bowls made by my erstwhile teenage potter, her name etched carefully on the bottom of each. Toys; some that were hugged and abused by my own babies. Books; reference, novels, children’s, bios and guides; loads of these. Curtains, blankets, linens, serviettes and table cloths, and delicately embroidered pillowcases. Projects; half finished, unframed, requiring mending, long forgotten or purposefully ignored. Art. (The word stands alone.) Framed photos, large and small. A sizable music collection of CD’s and cassettes, even vinyl, a few long out of circulation and some painful to the ears. Electronics, furniture, and computer paraphernalia that will always mystify me. Files, papers, drawers and cabinets full of information, useful and obsolete. Clothing, the easiest perhaps. Trinkets, mementoes, tchotkes. Memories, sorrows. Joys.
Sixty. A few days ago, I celebrated this benchmark with a group of dear friends. I’ve taken inventory of the past six decades and find myself bewildered as to how I even got this far. I often joke with visitors who ask “What brought you to Mexico?” Yes, a plane brought me to Puerto Vallarta; and at times a car. Now the joke’s on me.
A series of complications found me back in Vallarta this time. I have an FM2, a visa that allows me out of Mexico for only 90 days. While this is a hardship in certain ways, it also permits me to own property and not pay capital gains (28%), once I sell. Since I am trying to immediately sell a piece of property, I became hogtied by Mexican immigration.
My era here has past. It’s time to open the door to new and more innovative, cleverer, more ambitious people than I.
So I will be a homeward bound angel. And I will diligently search for that elusive agent and publisher for my books; perhaps produce a chapbook of my excellent poems and continue to write, for the amusement of myself and hopefully others.
I’ll take that 28% loss. I thought it might be painful but there are things other than money that impinge upon the emotional spine.
Money and time; the ultimate equalizers. One, perhaps negotiable, the other, never really. Not having much left of either, I am encouraged to make a new plan. It won’t be the first and with any luck, not the last.
Thanks for reading.