Getting Where?

 It's November again, the month I've sometimes tried to use to jump start my blog. Do people still blog? They do, but they do it on substack and they often have a free version, and then a longer and more complete subscription version. I keep track of Sarah Bessey and Diana Butler Bass and a few others. But they have written books and developed a market. An old fashioned blog will still be my contribution.

I originally named this blog "Getting There". Reviewing what I wrote about who I am, which is displayed at the top of each post, there's one glaring error. I'm no longer just past midlife. I'm staring at retirement (whatever that means for a woman who mostly did her work from home) and wondering what decline will look like for me, for us. 

Of course, that is not the only thing I'm doing. But does the title "Getting There" still describe the way I see my life? Getting where???

We have moved off the farm in the last year. I'm still learning how to live in this beautiful space, curated so lovingly by my uncle and aunt until they moved out and we moved in. 

We've not lived here a year yet, and each season holds its own wonders in their/our yard of trees and prairie. I know the goal should be to be able to feel that this is OUR home, but at this point in my life that seems a goal made of hubris. How do you own a place? Does this place belong more to me than it does to the deer who wander through our yard, or to the bluestem grasses, or raccoon families? I'm grateful to be living here...grateful many times every day. But it does not feel like it is mine, and at least for now, I'm glad. I don't want to take it for granted. I don't want to believe I have a right to it or that I've somehow earned it.

Of course fall brings the color that we expect. Somehow it always is more beautiful than we remembered. This land, with it's chosen trees has provided daily discoveries. We notice which trees show color first, and enjoy the peak beauty of each variety. We are nearly at the end now, with the Bradford Pears the last ones with brilliant leaves falling rapidly.

But back to 'getting there'. We are somewhere different than we were before.

I think when I chose that title, I had a way of being in mind, more than a place. In that sense, I'm still on my way. Maybe I'm wishing I'd made more progress. I'd hoped to be more wise by now, more confident in my ability to handle whatever is ahead. I believed by now I'd be more certain in my understanding of myself, my loved ones, my faith.

Instead, I seem to find more questions. Getting there may mean finding more humility and awe, rather than more confidence. While humility can be (and has been) pretty painful, awe is a welcome companion on the way through humility.

The thing I am finding is more of a sense that the questions are ok, the uncertainty is ok. Continuing to need to learn, to make up for mistakes, to watch and wonder, to recalibrate...all these things are part of growing up, and even at this time of my life, there are ways I'd really love to be better, smarter, more confident. 

So "Getting There" will stay the title, without a definition of where I'm getting to.