Ends and beginnings

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The mug pictured above is a pleasure, and a bit of a disappointment. This morning I noticed some of the print is starting to flake off; I just bought this in June for my husband, oi! Yet the messages on this Fred Rogers cup are timeless, and we'll treasure it as long as the words remain.

Despite being partially disfigured, the quote in white struck a cord in me today, hence this early morning entry: Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else. Wow! I'm truly feeling that in my current getting over illness, merging back into my house state. Mostly this sense of newness is related to, ahem, accepting my age. Not that suddenly I'm ancient, but OMG I am certainly not as young as I was, um, previously.

How previous? Earlier this year, last summer, pre-covid 2020? I'm not exactly sure, but for discussion's sake, let's say March 2024, when I decided to dip my toes into semi-retirement. When I was still fifty-seven, but aware that fifty-eight was more than five decades and three years. It was two times twenty-nine, the last time I had a bit of a kerfuffle when approaching a birthday. But months later, finally settled into being fifty-eight, that numeral takes on a different meaning. An altered sense of who I am has emerged, perhaps enhanced by experiencing covid, or at least not dimmed by it. Not shaped by it, but.... But boy I am not the woman I used to be.

What does this mean? LOL, I'm just starting to grasp that I'm different. The urge to write is there, but not enough that I'm retrieving story notes and adding to them. I want to finish some machine-necessary quilts yet my machine remains under cover as it has been for NEARLY TWO MONTHS. I put that cover on before I went to visit my youngest daughter in mid-June, didn't take it off when I got home because I was only going to be home for two weeks, and haven't bothered removing that cover since I stepped back into my office last week. I've been happily hand-stitching, realizing English paper piecing is my current love, and that's JUST FINE.

Myrtle block in progress.
 

It's JUST FINE that I'm not seated at my noisy sewing machine. It's JUST FINE that novels remain in hard and flash drives, as well as within my gray matter. It's JUST FINE because I'm fifty-eight years old and whether it's semi or, gasp, permanent, I'm retired from the sense of I need to do this right now. Being an indie author allows that freedom, not considering my sewing hobby a business is another. I write these posts when the mood strikes, and while it does hit often (hahaha), if I go a few days without writing, that's okay. I do these things to make myself happy, and lately the measure of output has lessened for joy to be achieved.

Huh. The measure of output has lessened for joy to be achieved.

Hmmm. That's a fascinating concept, which I had not previously pondered.

The measure of output has lessened for joy to be achieved.

Not that I need to put that on a coffee cup, although I certainly could, but wow. The measure of output has lessened for joy to be achieved. 

This is one of the reasons I write blog posts, to figure out my life. The measure of output has lessened for joy to be achieved. I'll leave this now, gotta cogitate on that sentence over breakfast and more tea.

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