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Attic Ponderings
I recently came across a wooden box in the attic. It was about a foot long and 8 inches wide. Inside were the worldly possessions of my husband’s Uncle Al. It contained eight brittle, browning, folded National Geographic maps of countries from all over the world; a short, white pencil from a business in Tupper Lake, NY with a four digit phone number on it; two blank postcards with illustrations of old cars on them; a sticker from a beef roast when a two and a half pound roast cost just one dollar and two cents; two brown die, a magnifying glass, and two orphaned radio knobs. It struck me acutely that we were the keepers of the only possessions left on this earth of a man that was part of my husband’s family. It struck me hard. Is that what a life boils down to in the end? We live, have experiences, love, grow, and when we die the whole of who we were fits into a box, or an attic, or a house.
It is not lost on me, as I am on the cusp of turning 60, that this is the section of my life where I die. That sounds really morbid. I don’t mean it to be. It is just that it has become crystal clear to me, that this “is it”. I don’t have a lifetime to reflect, grow, and change. What I have is 30 years, at best, left on this planet. I want to maximize the years that I do have left and live a happy, productive, meaningful life. So, I am trying new things and stepping out of my lane to shake things up a bit. I don’t want the sum of me to…
