Oh, No! Another Name Change

Carpe diem, friends. Carpe diem.

I am so, so sorry (no, I’m not). The name of my newsletter has changed. Again.

I really liked Teri’s Ruby Slippers but something felt off. It was the what for and why. I didn’t feel like I was connecting with you. So, I asked Jill at

Jill Schildhouse's Media Insights and Assignments

to take a look and give me her honest opinion (thank you, Jill!).

“I think I need to narrow my focus a bit. I’m all over the place,“ I wrote her.

She gently agreed, “Yes, you are exactly right: You need to narrow your focus bc it does feel very all over the place ... some posts are personal birthdays, some are about guns, some are about politics and religion, some are about travels. Your audience is probably confused because it feels like a mixed bag. If you want to cover a ton of different topics, try to find some common thread/theme to tie them together.”

It was a mixed bag, one that held some thoughts on wildly diverse topics. But how to focus? What was the common thread? Did I need to dump everything that wasn’t travel-related? I didn’t know so I let those questions steep. Assigned them to my subconscious.

Then

Jennifer Louden

wrote her great piece the other day called Giving Up on Someday.

“I always thought I would be someone who aged gracefully whatever the hell that means but then, who doesn’t think that when they’re young? Aging is abstract until you’re on a Zoom call waiting for a client and lifting your neck with your fingers. Then aging is a reality that you can’t deny.

Wait, that’s not true. You can deny you’re aging and are going to die. Lots of people do. But you don’t want to. Because to deny your finitude is to believe you have all the time in the world. Fall for that lie and nothing is not too late until everything is.”

Then she made a It’s Not Too Late List and asked readers to add to it.

I wrote “It’s not too late to turn from the past and run to a better future! To say what we mean and mean what we say. To carpe diem!” I was talking to myself. And then I forgot about it. Until Mika who writes

musings by mika

quoted my comment on Jennifer’s Giving up on Someday, reminding me.

And suddenly it hit me like a tidal wave. I’ve been thinking a lot about aging lately. I don’t know when it happened but I can’t deny it. It’s the fact that the time ahead of me is much shorter than the time behind me. That there’s so much more I could have done if I had been wise, and that I’m determined to do whatever I can in the time I have left.

My focus in this newsletter must be on taking opportunities (while I still can) to do things that I’ll regret not having done at the end of my life.

Frequently when I write, some of you comment that I inspire you. That you can’t imagine doing some of the things I do, going the places I go. You don’t usually include the words “at your age” but I know that’s implied. Well, this is backatcha, folks. Your list won’t be like mine but make no mistake. We all have a list. I hope mine is short.

Like Jennifer, each of us should have this mental tick tock cadence in our heads reminding us:

1. Time waits for no one, and

2. Every day we have a dwindling amount of it left.

So today, when I overlaid the name Teri’s Doing It! with my past newsletter topics, most of it fits. Eating and Drinking Like Dieties; Leaving My Religion, My Party; My First Pistol; The Mountains, the Sisters of St. Gertrude; 10 Trips I Want to Take Before I’m 70; and so on. Most of it.

Without realizing it, I’ve been writing about doing it!

And that’s my gift to you, readers. Whether you’re 70 or if you’re 30, it’s the knowledge that your time is finite too. One life. That’s all we get. None of us should be lying in a hospital bed or gasping for breath in an ambulance at the end crying, “Why didn’t I do it when I had time?”

Let’s do it, eh? Together and individually. And I don’t promise that this is the very last name change you’ll ever see for this newsletter, but for now it is.

What’s going on your It’s Not Too Late List?

Carpe diem, friends!