Being Satisfied

When my life is ended and my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones, I will leave there’s no doubt
But one thing’s for certain, when it comes my time
I’ll leave this old world with a satisfied mind (Hayes and Rhodes)

Turning 64 felt like any other birthday at first. Then a few days later, I realized that something was shifting in my thinking. I had been perseverating on the mild dissatisfaction I was feeling at work – some challenges with controlling personalities and the frustration of bureaucracy. By the time the gifts were opened and the cake was gone, my job and my life were looking different.

Today I have been 64 for five days. Here are the things that constitute my life:

I live on a mountain in a lovely warm house with a fireplace and a grand piano which I rarely play because I have never been satisfied with my degree of talent.

My partner in life is an amazing, loving, sensitive, handsome man with whom I often grow impatient because he can be so unconventional.

My children are two exceptional, bright, caring women who light up my heart like a candle. I complain when they don’t call me often enough or if I don’t understand their decisions.

I have three sisters who are each unique. They are as different from me as they are from each other and sometimes those differences cause me consternation.

My friends are fantastic. I have made many new friends in the past five years and continue to dote on the old Rhode Island friends. Sometimes I don’t hear from them and I whine.

But I declare all that to be over because I am truly satisfied and will now focus on that satisfaction for the years that I have left. If you hear me complain about what I don’t have or what’s wrong, you can tell me that:

On the long train ride to work at 5:30 AM, I get to see the beauty of dawn breaking in the Maryland sky.

When my low back aches, it’s a gentle reminder to strengthen it with more exercise.

When I look in the mirror and see that I’m no longer young, my spirit has no age and my mind-only the limits I impose.

When I look in my bank account and worry about retirement, I don’t really want to stop working and if I inherited my Mom’s genes, I have lots of good years left.

And so I enter my 65^th year with a better attitude - lacking nothing, open to the last stage of winter as it gives way to spring.