Life in January

January is my month of birth.

I will have completed 54 years of life as of January 29th.

I am not sure what to feel about my encroaching senior citizenship. Should I be glad that I still feel (and some say look) about 10 years younger.

Or.

Should I be freaked out by the actual number of years I have lived and by the fact I still feel so inexperienced.

It is a strange thing to feel like I should be more formed and finalized than I do. I do not think I am alone in feeling this way. Or Maybe I am!!

As a child I looked forward to the day when everything in life was set and perfect. The adult life of ease and being able to make the right decisions.

Somewhere along the line I began to realize that that day had not arrived yet. And still has not.

In my 20's I knew I still had lots of time to achieve perfection.

In my 30's I was part of the creation of 2 perfect babies but I still had not reached that point of completing me.

In my 40's I was actively trying to find my life's passion (other than hubby and children).

Once reaching 50 I finally found my creative and work passion. (Can anybody guess what it is?)(a slap on the wrist to those who know me and don't know!)

And yet at nearly 54 and having found my passion I still feel inexperienced. Life still takes work. I was going to say Happiness takes work but that is not right.

Let me try this... Acceptance of the direction life has taken takes work. Even when there are really fabulous elements in my life there seem to always be more to learn and experience.

Somehow this is making it sound like I am unhappy with my life. I am extremely happy with my life but it is different than what my 15 year old brain imagined. I suppose that,as children, most of us think we will be the ultimate best at whatever we chose to be. But so often, even for the most successful people in the world, we don't end up feeling that way.

So....

Why is that?

Is it the need to learn and continually improve oneself that keeps our neurons firing and keeps us feeling young?

Should I just accept that this state of incompleteness that I feel means that my life will remain interesting and compelling?

Maybe instead of worrying about my inexperience I should rejoice in it.

Maybe that should be the aim of life. To never feel complete until the moment before death

because

once there is nothing left to learn there is nothing left but boredom.

And

Who wants to be bored?

Hmmm...

I have decided....

I should be glad that I still feel (and some say look) about 10 years younger.

Inexperience is good.

It means you are still alive and kicking.

Pensitivity

I wrote this on Monday early afternoon. It is Tuesday now. I am still pensive but yes...writing does help..

I am sitting at this computer with classical music playing in the background. It is sad music. It is making me melancholy.

What is melancholy exactly? Let me look it up.

mel·an·chol·y   /ˈmɛlənˌkɒli/
–noun
1.a gloomy state of mind, esp. when habitual or prolonged; depression.
2.sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness.
3.Archaic.
a.the condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression.
b.black bile
–adjective
4.affected with, characterized by, or showing melancholy; mournful; depressed: a melancholy mood.
5.causing melancholy or sadness; saddening: a melancholy occasion.
6.soberly thoughtful; pensive.

I have looked up black bile and I so not going there! I am soberly thoughtful and pensive.

Being pensive is one of the stages of creating for me. One of the first stages.

There is an idea brewing in there and I can't quite pin it down. As now, it usually comes when I am nearing the end of one project.

I am at the point in my current piece where it is all pushing forward and putting the final touches on it. I have to figure out the leafy part.

This is the part of the technicalities of having a piece turn out as imagined. Fun and interesting but my mind is looking to something new already.

Over the weekend I took my mind off the tree by finishing off a Printer's Drawer to be hung. Actually not sure if it is "finished"......crap....

I like it but I think it needs more now that I look at the photo.

It will come to me though...

"All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves. "
Amelia Barr