70 year olds: They're not as old as they used to be!

Book Review: The 12 Week Year by A.Trevor Thrall

Reading this book has been quite the challenge.  In chapter 3 the topic is “Crafting Your Writing Vision”.  I’ve only made it to the 2nd page and I’m stuck.

I realize that I have been functioning on a vision crafted when I was 21 years old after having a traumatic loss of a close friend and of a job. At that time, in the late 1960s, a hospital nursing supervisor asked me to write down my one-year, five-year, 10-year, 20- year and 50-year goals. Yikes!  I sat in her office and envisioned what I thought my future would look like. 

Here’s how I saw my life going: one year goal, get pregnant; five year goal, have more kids; 10 year goal, be a school nurse; 20 year goal, full-time nursing to pay for higher education for the kids; 50 year goal, become a writer. That’s when I knew that collecting stories and ideas would become a life-long pursuit.

As an operating room nurse in 1969, I knew one thing for certain:  I did not want to be lifting 200 pound unconscious patients off an operating room table onto the recovery room stretcher.  In those days the nurse did everything, including mopping the floors. This was before aides and porters and janitors were even allowed into the operating room. 

In 1969, my thoughts of 70 year old people included words like ancient, bedridden, wheel chair bound, restricted in getting around, daydreaming story tellers. 

My choice of writing became a focus: I began daily journaling, writing down situations and my responses to them, some poetry, prayers. Later journaling became notes related to homeschooling our children. Everything I did could be stored and used for writing when I was too old to do anything else but daydream and tell stories. 

When I was 60, I received a copy of the book Half-Time by Bob Buford.  The core of that book was to weed through your life and determine the new strategy for the last half of the game.  The question to my heart was, “What 3 or 4 words on the back of your tee-shirt describe you?”. Truthfully, tee-shirts are only for people to see. God sees the heart.   My thoughts now are different from then.

One problem is that I have bypassed age 70 and my thoughts about 70 year old people have changed. They’re not as old as they used to be. Now that I'm 77, I’m having trouble re-crafting my vision. I’m not disabled or bedridden and am still able to get out.  How do I shut off the collecting stage and turn on the writing stage? Can I manage these simultaneously?  Is there ever a time to shut off the learning stage?

 A.Trevor Thrall asks: “Where do you hope to be 10 or 15 years from now?”[1]  Hmm…..age 87-95. What will I be able to do at age 95? Only God knows.

[1] The 12 Week Year for Writers Publishers John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2021