I turned 65 a couple of days ago. It was a momentous occasion because in my mind it seems like high school graduation was only yesterday. The birth of my children was merely a few hours prior. Somehow time has passed so swiftly that the once teenager, then young adult, then middle-aged woman has finally reached the official age of senior citizenship status. Yay!

Years ago when my job at a major insurance company talked about retirement, that event seemed like something so distant in the future that it would never happen. But lo and behold, time has had a way of passing so swiftly and with such decisiveness that I have now reached what is seen as the norm for retirement age. 

I don’t have the money to retire, nor do I have the desire to so do. What I do want to do is change the course and direction that I’ve been sailing my ship. The seas have been choppy and at times the passage has been rough, yet as the captain of my destiny, I am entering uncharted waters with only one destination in mind. Death for all of us is the final destination. However the path we journey until we arrive there is one that we can control.

No matter what I may do to earn a living, writing will always be my passion. The joy of formulating words onto paper to create a scenario, to express a feeling, or to share an idea is what I enjoy the most. The challenge of taking individual words and putting them together to create a column or compose a novel, is always an undertaking that I take on with glee. My mission is only accomplished when someone can read those words, enjoy them and get my meaning.

I rarely ever struggle to find words. When I do, it is because I want to present the words in a unique way so as to capture the reader’s attention. Or the words are a double entendre, with the word saying one thing while the meaning says another. 

I’ve been writing this column for about 15 years now. I’ve always tried to call things like I see them. My viewpoint is now further tinged with the bluntness of old age. I would like to write this column for 15 more years. But if I become irrelevant, I need you, the reader, to speak up and say so. There’s nothing wrong with fresh perspectives and new voices. That is how I got here to begin with. Especially when those viewpoints take us as a community in the direction we need to go.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep writing.