AGING WITH PURPOSE

I was just at my family's annual Thanksgiving gathering. I have been attending these for many years, and i am watching my family grow older before my eyes.
The children are much taller than I am. My nephews and nieces are older now than I was when we began meeting each year at my brothers 'new' (now not so new) house in WV a long time ago. One young great niece had a brain tumor a few years ago, at age 17, and died the next year.  Her father and uncle were overcome with emotional strain and it took them special time to integrate so much shock and loss into their otherwise sanguine personalities. The strain of these sufferings are written on all of our faces. The tears, the wrinkles, are etched into our cheeks. I wish I looked as pretty now as I did in that first photo of myself, taken right after I had left my husband and attempted to spend a holiday without him for the first time. I had held my head high, despite feeling like I had just had a major organ ripped out of me without any anesthetic. On the way home from the most recent meeting, I immersed myself in some long overdue focused time about an issue having to do with my dream project, that required much more attention than I had  recently given it. And in those moments of turning away from family photos documenting the way age transforms our faces and bodies on so many levels, and concentrating of my own objectives, I felt ageless. I felt present. I felt alive. And I realized that as long as I could use a little discipline to marshall my focus towards one goal at a time, despite wanting it all at once, (exactly as I had always wanted it -all at once, no limits, easy process, no pain, no struggle)-well, as long as I could settle down into accepting how reality just might bend to my will, at least a little bit, if I provide the right conditions and settle into my own consciousness enough to really listen to myself, well then, the magic arrives. Magic that announces that I am in the land of discovery, and newness, and creation, an area far beyond my cell phone, or seeing other peoples  endless posts on social media,  that appear to dwarf my own small circle of love, and occasionally leave me feeling small, and puny. But with the magic of bringing my own vision alive, I transcend space time and especially, the burden of feeling much older than others, the 'otherness' that comes with having lived longer and seen more and having a larger bill to pay to sustain and protect all that experience, in a way that is so very bittersweet. This process of concentrating is  not easy, it's not simple, and it doesn't happen every time I try. However, with effort, and with hope, with an intention to push myself, that enlivening sense of purpose, available to me my entire life, and now still here.. transforms me into a different person for a moment, a new person who sees with slightly different eyes,  the sun and the stars, the people around me, life, in a way unique to that moment only. This process of discovery is a constant! It is still very possible, and absolutely essential to me for creating a sense of joy in my life, that I maintain a sense of purpose. Making progress on a goal allows me to  thrive on the idea that I have much to look forward to, while I remain earth bound for now, that I have much to live for, much to achieve, within limits of course, but still.....