Life is short; eat dessert first.
As a breast cancer survivor, I’ve always followed that rule.
Life is short. I feel amazingly lucky just to be here; to be alive; blessed by extra time I didn’t expect to have—so far, 14 years and counting.
I’ve always felt young and optimistic and full of life and a sense of possibility with all that’s still ahead of me. And yet lately there’s something else. I feel a little window starting to close, and a new idea dawning—-” I might only have a few good years left.”
Suddenly, just being here doesn’t feel like enough. I want….MORE.
I feel myself starting to flip— from grateful to greedy. And I’m not sure how this happened.
Maybe it’s from spending a day recently in Big Sur. Just being there you immediately enter a time warp. Big Sur is the same; and I feel the same—just like I did when I stopped there on a cross-country trip, and we spent a night in Pfeiffer State Park—the night I turned 21. Wasn’t that a few years ago—not a few decades?
Maybe it was hearing a friend mention her son is turning 40. How was that possible? Didn’t we just turn 40 ourselves? My brain could NOT comprehend the math.
Or maybe it was the cartwheel.
The other day I was in a park. Families were out on the grass enjoying the beautiful day. I saw a young mom with her kids. Suddenly the mom stood up and did a cartwheel. I flashed on myself as a young mom, doing cartwheels with my kids in our backyard.
The mental memory was crystal clear. When suddenly I had an equally clear physical memory. In that flash, my body remembered exactly how it felt to do a cartwheel. I’m incredibly lucky that I feel almost no aches and pains of age. But my body still sent a clear message to my brain: and I knew without a doubt—in a flash of insight– that my cartwheeling days are over; I have done my last cartwheel for the rest of my life.
An epiphany. It wasn’t that I was sad; I was stunned.
Which maybe explains why I felt compelled to enter one of those kids’ bounce houses. I saw it set up in a friend’s backyard for a birthday party later this week—and I had to go in.
Cartwheels won’t cut it for me anymore, but jumping still does. Marcus is turning 3 this week—and I think I had as much fun as he did.
Life is short. Eat dessert first.
I’m jumping eating as much as I can.
You said:
“I’ve always felt young and optimistic and full of life and a sense of possibilty with all that’s still ahead of me. And yet lately there’s something else. I feel a little window starting to close, and a new idea dawning—-” I might only have a few good years left.””
EXACTLY what I have been feeling lately!
Thank you so much for your wonderful blog. I am somewhat new to it and I am “feeling greedy” for more! I want more time to go back and read your old entries because I love what you have to say. Thanks so much – looking forward to more visits.
I could never do a cartwheel. But I do a backbend once a year to prove I still can. Come to think of it tho, haven’t done it lately…
Jumping’s good too. And that eating dessert thing first, a great motto for life! You go girl.
Now I must go and attempt that backbend…
I used to do backbends too. Now I’m not sure if it will be on the list with the cartwheels– or the jumping. Will try one and let u know.
The toughest thing for me was developing vertigo which means no more wildly dancing my way through life. Slow down? No way…Just have to find ways to let off steam that don’t require too much motion.Hard to slow ME down!!
I used to be able to do a one-handed cartwheel, Darryle! Those days are long behind me,though. Looks like you had a great time– love that!!
Mari—wow! A one-handed cartwheel—impressive.
Guess you, me and Debi all are finding new ways to dance—or cartwheel through life. At least we’re lucky we can still do mental cartwheels.