PreVacation Musings

This vacation almost didn't happen-it hasn't happened yet, but if you are reading this, then it is happening NOW, and I hope it is. We all need it-it's been nothing but Death, Illness, Illness more Death and Illness Illness Illness the past few months. Death and Illness can kiss my ass and it's not even Tuesday. Honestly, ENOUGH.

Each year there is concern that this annual trip may be the LAST one we are all together and every year possibility moves closer to probability. So much so, I think some of us are beginning to want to avoid it-but no, we well patch ourselves together and go until we can go no more.

As long as I can push a wheelchair (or two if it came to that) we will go to California in the spring. As time slowly takes away things, the things it leaves behind become more precious. And, to the elderly, the old memories are better than new ones.

As I struggle to understand this concept, I wonder what the struggle really is-and the answer is, the same old struggle we all have. YOU ARE NOT LIKE ME.....I'm still more future oriented, my folks are past oriented. Why should there BE a struggle?

Now, I could go all self righteous and say "it's better for them to focus on the future", but who is to say that is true? Maybe there is a reason why our seniors go into the past towards the end of their life. Maybe, just maybe, that's what they are supposed to do-certainly enough of them do it.

Being born at the end of the baby boom, I'm about to be ass deep in old people-me, the very generation that pretty much said "screw the elders". Oh, the instant karma with THAT one. Even more creepy to think about-much like Soylent Green, Elder Care is now an INDUSTRY. Yes, we created this world and now those whippersnappers are putting us in Senior Greenhouses. EWWWW. Of course, being born at the end makes me the more able bodied elder (heaven help us) and the one who must liberate us from the Greenhouses. Somewhere in this paragraph is a very sick and funny novel-I may have to return to it later.

Anyway, if you read this, I am in California in real time and heavily into the moment-breathing and not reacting and allowing all to just be. I will be walking in the labyrinth (Larry) and sketching bunnies and looking for kingsnakes when I can do so without being "caught". I hope to have fired up the kindle by now (Thursday)-it's been in a box waiting my will to live to return...LOL.

And, I will be within 20 minutes of a Trader Joe's and a dried fruit stand and a winery. I might not make it to the ocean, but I will be able to smell and taste it, and know that it is there, waiting for my return. Yes, if you read this, I'll be blissed.