“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” ~ Orson Welles
Today is my birthday and I share it with Marie Antoinette. Her life was cut short by a guillotine. By all accounts, she marched to her death with stoicism, ready to let it all go. In her lifetime, she’d enjoyed all that the material world could offer. Perhaps she was curious, “What is on the other side”?
I’m privileged, as are most of the people who are in my circle, in that we have easy access to anything that we might need or want. What was missing for me was the life I’d dreamt of as a child. That of a writer and an artist.
I accept the wrinkles, the body aches, and the need for reading glasses. They’re small due to pay for the life I get to live now because I decided a few years back that I would recover my childhood dreams.
So I now go through my days standing up for myself and my creative vision for my life. I trust the process of my creativity and the creator’s process in having me age the way I do. I show myself the astonishing light of my being through meditation and yoga.
I embrace more silence and stillness in a busy world. I write my articles, paint with my daughters, and set up art exhibits in our home by sticking our artwork on the walls. Our current exhibit is “Colours of the Sunset”. Sunsets are very pretty reminders that we are closer to our last breath. They ask the question “What do I want to leave behind?”
All that will remain of me are the memories we create today. I better make them good. I intentionally fill my days with the people I love: Family first and fellow courageous people who overcame their inner critic and started expressing themselves in colours, words, songs, numbers or by taking a stand for something they’re passionate about.
Happy Day of the Dead!
Over to you…
What fills your days currently and would you like it to be different?
