Forties

I was over Julia and Yani's for Sunday afternoon/evening. Yani is studying for an exam at the end of this week and he's hiding out with his computer and textbooks. Julia and I both like to cook - though she'll do it all if I let her. She does it so much more creatively that it's fun to just hang out, talk and watch her "make stuff up" in the kitchen. I eventually convince her to let me do some food prep and the shucking of the corn. She chides me for cleaning pots and pans, but I find it meditative so I do it anyway - and then she says I can come back anytime. ;)

Eventually Yani comes out of hiding and we go for a walk at a local state park. The three of us walk down a wooded path. We spend a good deal of time discussing the questions of work, money, life and meaning. The forties seem like such a relaxed time compared to the twenties and thirties. Although we may have glimpsed our own mortality it seems too far off be a relevant problem in our lives. We're far enough along in life to have had our successes and our up-and-downs so the questions aren’t so much "what are we going to do with our lives" anymore but "how did we get here and what's next"? I guess the questions probably keep changing over time.

The past few months I've found myself in a particularly odd place. With my old "life plan" thrown out the window I realize I have the ability to question everything: where I live, what I do for work, what I want from life, what are my values? And all these questions are now colored by a different perception of what life is about anyway. I guess I've been on an OK path because I'm still OK with most the choices I've made. The things that aren't important anymore seem to fade away.