written by Lisa Morgan 3/21/2016
You spend the first year of your life trying to yearning to walk. You spend the following six months of your life learning to walk & the next six months learning to run. What no one told you was that you'd spend the next eighteen years of your life walking or running to somewhere, anywhere but where your parents wanted you to be at the time. You spend the following twenty years running in every direction attempting to meet all of the goals that you'd set for yourself in your youth; only to find out there was never enough time to get all of it done, but there's always tomorrow or the next ten years right? It's frightening how fast the next ten years go by considering how slow the first twenty went, which somehow doesn't seem at all fair or right. Now that you've turned fifty, the big five oh my gosh, what happened to my youth & when did those start sagging?
Welcome to the world of the late bloomers, who thought there would always be time until there never seemed to be enough time. When you finally decide what makes you happy, not necessarily what you do for a living but what makes your heart skip a beat or makes your soul dance, you find out the clock is running faster than an Olympiad sprinter. Nonetheless you have found your passion. Now how do you combine that with making a living? Don't you just love a challenge? Challenges are what we as humans deal with everyday, so think of this as one of the best challenges because the reward is getting paid to do what you love! Remember no one lies on their death bed wishing they had spent more time at the office or washing more clothes & cleaning the baseboards more than when their Mom was visiting.
You have had plenty of experience walking & running by age fifty, that now don't walk cause honey it's time to dance. Parlay that passion of yours into a paycheck. You have a good twenty years left in the workforce so why not spend those years with a glide in your stride, because let's face it after seventy it will become more difficult to walk much less glide. What are you waiting for? You saw how incredibly fast those last ten years went by! You were looking good one day & the next your hair was filled with these two inch long grey hairs that defied gravity, while your other body parts fell victim to gravity; not to mention the wrinkles appearing overnight accompanied by those annoying aches & pains. You better get off your ever growing backside while you still can & dance to the beat of your inner music. Whatever it is that makes your heart sing & your soul wanna dance, that's what will motivate you to get up every morning & to succeed.
Don't wait till the scoreboard has three seconds left to say "Oh no!", because those three seconds do not go in slow motion. I was with my Dad the last ten days of his life, as were my siblings & my Mom. My Dad fell into a coma & remained in that state until he died except for a brief moment when he woke up asking my Mom where he was. She quickly told him he was in the hospital & had been for about a week due to a series of mini strokes he had suffered along with a more intense stroke. My Dad looked over to see me standing next to him, which meant one thing, that I had driven a four hour drive to be with him at the hospital & that could not be good. My Dad's last words were "Oh Shit!" Nothing like going out with a memorable two words wouldn't you say?
I knew immediately what he meant. No I'm not ready, there's so much more I want to do & to say, but the time on the scoreboard was running out. No more time outs left in the game. My Dad & I had a heated exchange about six months before he died, which was my fault & we never made up. This was also my "Oh Shit!" moment. As it turns out this would be a life changing moment for me in more ways than I could imagine at the time. I would never be the same, aside from the obvious that within a few days my Dad would be deceased.
I starting closing doors & opening new ones. I had no idea what I was doing but I knew I had to start moving to the beat of my inner music. I started writing again after a very long hiatus. I wrote a few screenplays, wrote a reality check satirical book. I actually had one of my favorite comedians David Brenner tell me that he thought I was funny & continue to write, which I did. The more I listened to my inner music, the more the song led me away from the limelight but to the sunlight. What I mean is that I do not desire fame or fortune but peace of mind, for me that is living simple. I never thought I would want to be surrounded by nature far away from neighbors or a big city but that is what I desire. Serenity, solitude & peace are things that are priceless to me, although I do realize I'll have to keep writing to pay for that serenity but it's the serenity that forges my desire to write which helps me find solitude. Funny how that works isn't it?
I'm going to spend my next twenty years dancing, maybe slow dancing, as I'm not moving like I used to ten years ago, but I'm dancing just the same. I want my soul to shine with such joy that all those mystic types think I have an aura, when in fact it's soul shine. I'm striving each day to be right with God in heaven. I know I'm doing better each day at that job but I'm no where near as good as I should be. I'll keep on working on myself because as it turns out I'm quite flawed. Aren't we all? I will keep on listening to my inner music humming a tune as I dance to my own beat. I want for my last words to be, "Now that was a dance."
Thank you for taking your time to join me,
Lisa Morgan
Author of the reality check satirical book
"Get Beach Slapped"
www.getbeachslapped.com
@thebeachwife on Twitter
Get Beach Slapped page on Facebook
