More About The Future

Yesterday, Roxanne Rustand posted a blog about looking to the future and enjoying life without hanging on to things that don’t matter that much.  She wrote about priorities and creating a bucket list for the future.  I spent the day thinking about this as I took care of accummulated mail, did chores around the house, and unpacked from a trip to Portland, Oregon where I attended my youngest son’s wedding.  He married a girl he’d been crazy about in high school, but they lost touch, she married someone else, had three children, got divorced, and experienced many rough times.  When she and my son reconnected last year, it was as if time had come full circle and they picked up where they’d left off, with the addition of her children who are smart, well-behaved, and fun – the youngest one, aged four, demonstrated a remarkable ability to gargle apple juice during a wedding ceremony.  Their story is like one of my romance novels coming to life and I want to write more stories like theirs.

I want to make happy memories with them and with my other grandchildren and though I live far away from all of them, I will visit often.  Money I earn from writing will go for these trips.  One of my goals is to clear out things I no longer need.  The more I have, the more I have to take care of and that takes time away from my family.  I want my children’s and grandchildren’s memories of me to be happy ones, of things we did and trips we took together.

Writing a bucket list will be a priority, too.  There are so many things to do and loved ones to do them with.   

Maybe I’ll even learn to gargle apple juice.