Detours after Fifty
For those of us who have had the luxury of retiring, detours off the worn and well-beaten path are inevitable. For one thing, the frenetic pace of juggling career and home has coasted, now affording us the opportunity to cruise at our own pace wherever our spirit moves us. Detours through uncharted territory pose their own dilemma, strewn with obstacles and challenges. Yet, our thought processes serve to till the soil for aeration, predisposing us to forays of reinvention, evolution, and revolution–preferable to getting stuck in a rut of predictability.
A Baby Boomer past fifty, I am living testament to the upheavals wrought by detours in life. Undergoing a midlife renaissance mandated I make necessary changes in order to navigate my way again. A bona fide pack rat, a mission to rid myself of debris and clutter became my battle hum and o-h-m-m-m: Simplify…
Less is more…as in the art of post fifty gals applying makeup sparingly. Elevating fine lines to rivulets and ravines by slathering on foundation is tantamount to botching the Watergate cover up. No need to rim our lips in fire engine red either to promenade a crow’s nest of furrows.
Purging my clothes closet of frivolous garments no longer fitting this impasse in my life proved most therapeutic. It did my heart good hauling bags over to the Salvation Army store. Practicality reduced my wardrobe to active wear and jeans. Put quite simply, the recesses and nooks and crannies of my home are now organized.
A self-professed fragrance floozy, gutting my stable of the superfluous proved quite a challenge. It meant scavenging through cupboards and storage boxes to summon my ladies-in-waiting. Sacrificing most of my glass goddesses for charitable transport entailed a melancholy prospect. I drew comfort knowing someone would readily adopt them for the song composed by their unique composition of notes.
I felt the gnawing pangs of a pack rat when I stared down no less than ten plastic bins harboring decorations for every season and days of remembrance. By then I had grown weary of streamlining so many areas of my life, I became an indiscriminate mercenary in ridding myself of the extraneous. I actually ended up purchasing a miniature Christmas tree for my dining room table, having simplified myself silly.
Alas, the bastion I least expected to simplify during my major event was the roster of friends I held in esteem. Nevertheless, I weeded my garden such that it has become a barren desert. Oftentimes the bonds of friendship are only as strong as their ties of similarity and sameness, driving home that any detour we take in life is primarily a solo journey. That’s the plain and simple truth.
Eva Pasco is the author of Underlying Notes, Women’s Fiction for gals over 40, available at Amazon:
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