I Like To Kick......

Today begins the official count down living out the last week of being in my 50's.  Funny, ten years ago when facing my 50's I was upset, depressed and out of sorts some of it due to turning fifty but there were other things happening in life that just about shut me down.  I experienced the worst depression in my life and barely could get myself together to go to work because I came home and pretty much slept until the next morning when again I had to pull myself together and get into the job.  At some point I decided that I was going to go into my first day of fifty looking the best I possibly could, so I scheduled Lisa, Peggy, Dena and I for an afternoon of Spa Sanctuary at the Nord Spa.  It was the best day as we had treatments, facials, mani/pedis and massages with lunch in the relaxation room.  Then after the spa, we went downstairs and had makeovers.  We finished off the day at Lupe's Tortilla.

Facing sixty, doesn't seem to have had the same effect on me.  Maybe it's because of the Asheville house hunting distraction but probably not.  I think it has more to do with gratitude to God because I am still alive and by most accounts, I shouldn't be.

I have been healthy and active most of my life, until my fifty's.  What began as scheduling a quality of life surgery became something more on the drive home from the Dr office.  They saw something in the ultrasound, a tumor, and they wouldn't know if it was malignant or benign until they did they surgery.  The Dr even scheduled the surgery on a day the oncologist could be there if it became something more.  Thankfully, it didn't become something more and those weeks awaiting surgery were filled with faith, then fear, back to faith and then some more fear.  I will always be so thankful for Cynthia C waiting with Roy during my surgery and then while he took care of getting me a private room, she escorted me and the gurney to the room.   Then in 2008 right before Ike and after a misdiagnosis, I found myself in a cardiologist's office learning that a virus had attacked my heart and only ten percent of it was working.  Thus began a five year odyssey of healing along with three cardioversions, two echo cardiograms and one ablation and one Revel implant ...and good recovery because the cardiologist helped me come back from near death, twice, I'm alive and enjoying life here in my last week of being in my 50's and looking forward to my sixties.

In my fifty's, I traveled more than I had before.  The love of Western North Carolina grew in my heart and spirit.  Buddy Lee Beardsley swept me off my feet.  We built a home and moved out to the prairie.  My mother was released from the prison of Alzheimer's and into Beulah Land.  My father severed his fragile relationship with Roy and me.  I've experienced life in unexpected ways with unexpected results meaning I have learned a lot in my fifty's with the Lord and the ways He prepared for me, while I questioned, those ways were truly for my growth and good.  Roy and I continue to grow closer each year and really have had a lot of fun in my 50's.  Long lost friends from the long ago have come back into my life and for this I am thankful.  In my fifty's I have come to appreciate friendship even more and so thankful for friends near and far.  Community Bible Study for me, started in my 50's and I have loved studying God's Word with Peggy but also making a whole bunch of new friends in the past six years.  Living in my fifty's has brought treasured friends from the inner loop to Rancho De Five, Dena and Emily and David.  And now in these past months studying, researching and looking online at homes in the mountains of North Carolina.

A constant all through life, laundry.  So here on this last Monday of being in the decade of my fifties, I must complete my task and begin the sorting of what's going with me on my trip.