Seeking at sixty

There comes a time for everything. Sometimes the time is not when you want it. Sometimes it surprises you. But it comes whether we are ready or not.

Sometimes the time just settles in slowly as we age, and suddenly we are there. Whether it is turning twenty-nine or sixty-seven, there are often things that come with that time in life and we find ourselves in a stage of life. Suddenly we are more ready for things that we had not imagined we would ever be ready for. Like remember when staying home on Saturday night became a great thing. Remember when it no longer felt like you had no social life. I do actually. I remember sometime in my late twenties or early thirties when staying home was just fine. I felt like I was finally an adult.

At every different stage in our life growth and change looks like something different than it did before. What we want at forty is different than what I want at sixty. Turning sixty helped me see this. I worked with a coach, Laurie, for several months last spring and into the summer and she helped lead me here to seeing this. She actually said it. "Deanne, you know maybe growth for you at sixty is different than it was at forty or at fifty." And that sentence kept resonating with me all summer. I kept thinking it over and repeating it to myself, wondering just what that meant to me and why it struck me so. 

And yes I believe her. It will be different. And I will be ready for that change.

And in a letter like this you would expect that I would tell you the answer. That I know what to be ready for. You would expect that I had it figured out, just because I have mulled it over. But I don't. I don't know what it means. I just know that it reverberates in my head. The sentence keeps popping up. And when I don't know quite how to proceed I just remind myself that it is ok. That growth is sometimes not recognizable. That it is not a trajectory. That it is not related to any one thing, art, self or business. It is a melange, a forest, and sometimes you cannot see the trees.

My life has been about growth, but I am still not sure what growth is. I grew myself, my family, my story, my art, and my business. And while there was some synchronicity, these things were often at odds with each other, one flourishing while another flailed. Through it all I had dreams and goals. But I also embraced the dreams and goals that emerged because I was me and they were them, and because the earth spins on its axis and things just come up. All in all I just tried to be ready. I tried to love every little bit of it along the way. Even the unexpected. And that was hard and demanding and ridiculous sometimes.

So what is growth at sixty? And does it even matter if I know? Can I just put my head to the frame and hook rugs and read books and just wait for ideas to emerge. Can I just stay curious and seek out the good in the day as best I can? In that way growth is the same at any age. It is about being ready to roost or being ready to flourish depending on what demanded of you at any given time. Once again I am left looking to the stars in the night sky for the answers and listening to my life.