We live on borrowed time...

There is so much I want to do when I quit working, I told one former teacher who had retired a few years before me. I know I'll keep busy...

Yes, and if you don't do it today, there's always tomorrow, she laughed. That's the way it is when you retire... There is no pressure. If you don't do it today you can always do it tomorrow...

Since leaving the daily working routine over a year ago, I've discovered the truth of her words. I do accomplish something every day. But some of the big projects I have planned to do for many years are still undone - because there's always tomorrow.

When I was still working, I started - but didn't finish - a number of writing projects - a family history, a second spelling workbook, a homonym dictionary, articles on this and that. In fact, I have a filing cabinet full of unfinished projects - waiting for tomorrow! And then there are all my unfinished quilts and knitting projects...!

Last week, I watched a documentary on one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott. In the film, she tells how becoming a mother - and having no time to write, but making time in the midst of her busyness - brought her to a new level of commitment to her craft. Her best writing (in my opinion) has been done since then, in time carved out of her busyness.

We live on borrowed time, she concludes. Nobody is going to care if we write, but us...

And yet, if she hadn't written, if she hadn't taken the time to write, how much of what she has to offer would have been lost!

So I am reflecting - again - on how to spend my time, at this stage of life - when I have so much flexibility. So that in the future, when I look back at what I did and didn't do, I won't have to live with regrets!