Trying to make some sense of your life through writing

I started doing this when I was about 8 years old through doodling pictures along with writing about things I wanted to better understand on a spiral notebook (the kind I used for school a lot then in the 1950s).

Over time writing became more and more important whether it was writing prose or poems along the way. Then in my late teens I started writing lyrics for songs I was writing too. Then when my father passed away in 1985 I stopped playing music so much on piano and guitar and Flute because I couldn't deal with my emotions then at 37 when my father passed away. He was a larger than life person always who was always in perfect physical shape and walked and worked out a lot and had been valedictorian of his high School Class and in 8th grade won the award for the best penmanship and math scores in the State of Washington. So, he was always a very exceptional person in all ways from all of this.

However, Mom and I fully expected him to live to 100 or more because of the way he was. However, he was always as stubborn as he was strong which I suppose has a lot to do with Determination. I think he didn't expect retirement to be like it was. He looked forward to it but I think never entirely adjusted to it.

However, retirement for me wasn't the problem it was for him because I can find all sorts of ways to entertain myself because I like to know something about almost everything in life so I'm constantly researching things I want to know more about. So, I never really get bored as long as I have my wife and children and Grandchildren and friends in my life. There is always something new an interesting to study in life that helps give life more meaning.

But, I realize not everyone is likely me where they are always a self starter and always interesting in everything like me.

Some people need their profession or they don't do well. For me, I'm relieved to not have to be working at something that I might not like to be doing all the time. I much prefer to be an explorer of places and of understanding cultures and people in those cultures all over the world.

So, accepting the loss of my father when he didn't have to die if he had made a better decision was hard and troubling for me until I almost died myself in 1998.

Then I finally was able to realize that I was grateful for each moment of life I had left with my wife and kids and grandkids.

So, this is how I live now being grateful for every single moment I have left.

By God's Grace