The time has passed for me to make a “40 under 40 list” because I turned 43 last year but keep forgetting that I’m no longer in my 30s. In my mind, I am still young, and the days stretch out toward an infinite horizon. There is boundless time for me to finally write that book and figure out how not to kill all my plants and rightly interpret the Book of Revelation. But then I try to do simple things like get out of a chair without grunting or balance on one foot to put on socks and my delusions of infinitude fall to the floor like the pennies that fall from my pants pockets and lie there in my closet, collecting dust. A penny isn’t worth the trouble of bending over. Apparently I’m in midlife, but how do I know, exactly? My friend died last year at 43, which means she missed midlife and didn’t even know it. Ten months later, I don’t know how to make sense of this. We think we have time until we don't, and what if mine runs out before I finish my book or become a master gardener or figure out what the mark of the beast is? The time has come for me to live with intention, to leave behind what weighs me down— thoughts about what others think or say, worries about what-ifs that will never come true, fears that everyone else has figured out how to live while I remain paralyzed by analysis. I ditch fear, and instead I read a Psalm, I buy some fake plants, and I sharpen my pencil. The time is now.
Your poetry always makes me feel stuff...
:)
Hear! Hear! Sharpen your pencil.