The ups and downs continue. In my eagerness to finally reflect in a post, I note that I last communicated a very long time ago. Seven months actually. Now 86, here I am. Last August 2025, I was stopped cold by an unnecessarily self-inflicted wounding from operating my scooter within my apartment. Not a serious wounding except to the skin on my leg, but serious enough to require 6 weeks of “wound care” visits and a near daily visiting nurse to do the re-bandaging.
However, as it is in my life, miracles still exist. A friend offered to give me Reiki Energy sessions, something I had not experienced before. At the end of my medical treatment, every single one of the nurses who cared for me, said the same thing: “I have never seen a wound like this heal so quickly.” So my choices for alternative medical assistance continue to give benefit. And I still wish that Western Medicine would open their minds to accept, teach, and regularly advise these alternatives.
Reflection on my 86 years of life continues. While somewhat tedious, I am enjoying cleaning out my files, reminding myself my very satisfying lifetime choices. While no one will ever care to read these voluminous files, I am left to summarize, in books and videos, for whomever from the next generation would like to know “Who was this Aunt Martha, Step mother, Grandmother, anyway?”
Twelve years ago, at 74, I entered what I now consider to be my fourth and final chapter of life. This chapter is challenging. Particularly the process of enduring/welcoming the little by little diminishments and the shifts in perspective that are part of the aging process. I hope to gather these perspectives for a final book/memoir…Encountering Age. Yes, I am changing and the world is changing around me. Who would have thought that I’d be taking my walker on Saturday and joining the millions of people across the country for a No Kings Rally in my town. I want to join those protesting the variety of authoritarian illegalities on the part of our current American President.
Life journeys differ for everyone. We learn, we grow, we feel pain and sadness, we learn and grow some more. We experience changes, live through transitions, and end up where we never imagined. Aging is a part of all of our journeys. And little, by little, if we choose, we pay attention and let it help us make sense of our tenure on this planet.