A few weeks ago, I received an email from Chabad.org about an 18-week course called Project Purpose, based on the book "On Purpose" by Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson. I signed up right away. Why? Why am I seeking Life Purpose at this stage of life? Because it is a new stage of life that's why. I pretty much could figure things out as I went through the other seasons. My purpose was to be a good wife, raise good people, make my work meaningful, be a better person, a better Christian. Here at 66, I can say honestly that I still want my work to be meaningful, to be a better wife, a better mother and grandmother, a better Christian...but what else? What have I missed? What will lead to a full and fulfilling senior season?
I don't know that I'll find those answers with this study, but it will give me something to think about, to talk to John about and quite possibly point me in a direction that feels right. I've felt a bit adrift since last year. I explained then my overall lack of ambitions, my desire to not feel so rushed and hurried and pushed to accomplish things. But I'm also recognizing that drifting isn't for me. I might not feel ambitious, but I dislike feeling there is simply nothing to reach for or to work towards.
Besides, Granny told me repeatedly that the real secrets to not getting old was to keep learning, all along the way, and to spend as much time as possible with young people. I think that's why she found it such hard going when she was caring for her mother in the last years of her life. She was the one all the sister's assumed would attend to all of Big Mama's needs, who would give up her life and home and simply more in and sacrifice.
Granny loved and respected her mother, and they were close. They spoke on the phone every single day sometimes talking for an hour or more before Big Mama's decline. But the lack of time to spend with her family and her grandchildren, to be always surrounded by those who were older than herself, sort of wore Granny down. As did the longing to be home amongst her things, working on her projects and plans.
Two of her sisters lived some distance away and both of them had grown children at home whom they cared for. When I say grown, I mean their children were beyond middle-aged and Mama was still making them meals and washing their clothes, etc. I think that's pretty much nonsense...But I digress. The remaining sister lived quite near Big Mama, but she was married. Granny, being a widow and living alone as she did, sort of became the victim of everyone's thinking that she didn't have anything to fill her time.
She did. She worked every single day except Sundays. She had her family to go visit and she still had grandchildren who weren't adults with whom she wanted to spend time. But there she was caring for Big Mama, often for weeks on end without any breaks at all.
All that to come back around to not wanting to just grow old. I don't mind getting older. I do mind getting caught in the sticky web of being old beyond my years and getting disinterested in life and living.
I get my work ethic from Granny and Grandmother both, neither of whom was going to let grass grow under their feet. They both had plans for doing this or that about their home, same as I do. I find my work right here where I am.
I often think that John would be a happier man if he would find some work here at home that made him feel he had purpose. But his hobby is watching tv and he spends hours every single day doing nothing but that. In warmer months, which fortunately are long here in the South, he does have mowing to do and that keeps him going. It's just the three or four months of really cold weather that is he inactive.
Not to say that John is terribly unhappy, but I think he feels he's not relevant any longer. I've tried to point out that each day I wake with a plan and things to do and rarely do I take a day off. I am not frantically busy. I just like to do things so I can look back over the day and say, "I accomplished something."
This morning, I woke with the idea of doing meal prep for this week. I really need to start getting meats out to thaw on Sunday as soon as I'm sure of what my plan for the week is. Instead, I took meats out yesterday and they weren't thawed until today. So, I have a casserole in the fridge (halved the recipe between two dishes so one went into the freezer), one in the crockpot, one marinating in the fridge which will also go in the slow cooker later this week.
I feel like it's time I did another freezer inventory to see what I have in those once more and how depleted my inventory has gotten. I always say I'm going to do better at keeping up with it and I do for a few weeks and then...I don't. I get lazy about it. I forget it. I pull out something and put back several things and don't write them down, or I pull several things and just blank on logging what came out. It's one of those jobs that I feel inclined to ignore but I know it won't take me nearly as long to do as it will to talk myself into doing it.
Sam is busy planting a big garden, fruit trees, berry bushes and plants, herbs, vegetables. Katie called today and she's planning to begin gardening, too. She's anxious to live the country life and I don't blame her.
Well, either I get up and finish cleaning the patio or I start that freezer inventory...Which shall it be?
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