I got a card and a Christmas letter from a childhood friend from my parents church the other day and so I sat down to write a Christmas letter to her and I realized if I eliminated the first paragraph it could be sent to many other people simply because it chronicled the events of the past year (at least as how I saw them).
I also found writing this letter very cathartic because from my point of view this has been a difficult year. But, writing about it I found to be really helpful.
Also, though I'm much better about getting whatever I feel out on paper than my wife, she is a much better editor than I am so often she will want to edit what I write so what I write of our life doesn't scare people too much.
Yes. There is something about living over 60 or 70 where life becomes a little more scary and somewhat more precarious in some ways that I feel I want to write about. However, her point of view is that "This is a Christmas letter" to let people know we are still alive and basically okay." which is true too.
But, for me, writing this letter opened a whole new chapter in my life in various ways. For example, my childhood friend said, "I was traveling 140 plus days in the past year." But, what I found interesting was that my wife counted up the days we traveled this past year (from January until her operation in early November and told me we had been traveling over 80 days this year ourselves.
Somehow for me at least this made me feel much better because even though it is harder for me and my wife to travel at our present ages, traveling is one of the more beautiful things you can do after you are retired if you can afford to do this.
It's all about time and money.
It's like the old saying: "If you've got the money honey, I've got the time!"
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