Turning 60 was a big deal.
I looked forward to it like little girls do about 16 and 21.
Quite frankly, I was proud (for the most part) of the life I’d lived up until that point.
Internally I think I was feeling mostly just thrilled to be an example to those around me
prepared and planned and lost sleep over turning 60.
I didn’t want to hurry time along, but I was so excited for the day.
This was when I would set new disciplines in place.
Oh, did I set out to celebrate 60 in grand style.
I made the biggest plans, posted the promises, and focused hard on making this the best year of my life - if that is even possible.
And, as I sit here in my writing corner at the stroke of midnight on my 61st birthday morning, I am filled to the brim with gratitude for how these last 12 months have played out in real time.
Give or take a tiny detail here or there, 2024 has been a banner year.
Many reasons made it that way I’m sure, but most of it I’ll attribute to being intentional about it.
Determining to plan events and gatherings to be with people to mark the time.
I won’t pass this way again.
I know that more and more with every passing day, so I laser focused on creating a year I’d love and one for which I’d be most proud.
LIke many of you might do as one year closes and you make your plans for the year to come, I set a solid appointment with myself at the close of 2023 right as I was eating my birthday cake, to get really specific how I was going to mark being 60.
How I was going to act, how I was going to talk, where I was going to aim my thoughts…
I was intentional about where my time went, whom I wanted to spend the time with, and what I would be doing with the time I had…
Here are a few things I learned:
I don’t have to do what I don’t want to do.
There are only so many tomorrows, so many weekends, so many sunsets, dinner parties, early morning walks, trips to the beach.
Every one of them needs to count.
I don’t way what I don’t mean. If I’m going to have a great day or week or month, it’s up to me.
Gone are the days of hoping someone will invite me over, stop by, or ask me to the show.
I can’t blame people for what they don’t see or think of.
If I want it, I have to make it happen.
And that’s okay.
If someone hurts my heart, I don’t have to walk into the rooms they’re in. I don’t owe them anything. I don’t have to be responsible for what they think and feel and want…
I don’t need to be loved by everyone.
With determination and a commitment to practice, I can do things I’ve believed I can’t.
Can’t really is a “won’t” most of the time.
Youthfulness is a choice.
We don’t have to grow out of things, or too old for showing up at a particular place, or to wear the bikini.
I walked outside every single day for a year. I did it.
Not 7 days, not 21 days, not a month… but one full year. Every single day.
We are so much more powerful than we think we are.
Taylor Swift is wonderful.
Europe is better than I dreamed.
People are good.