All of a sudden, all those admonitions to eat right and exercise and monitor my health sound less like ignorable nagging, and more like sensible precautions. My casual presumption that I will always be able to continue my current laissez-faire attitude toward what I do and how I do it is now subject to attack. Gone are the days of last-minute anything--everything takes longer, requires more effort, and leaves me more tired than it should. And then, there are those losses that remind me every day that life does not go on forever; that, impossible as it seems right now, I have a finite stretch of time and am definitely on the downhill side of the mountain.
I certainly plan on a few more decades, but suddenly, I am realizing that that's nowhere near a guarantee. So. It's time to submit my poems, to write that novel, to finish all those projects that languish upstairs, and maybe, just maybe, say a few 'thank yous' along the way.
