The Five Year Plan

Today I was inspired to break my adult life into 5 year increments. A lot of life happens in a short period of time. Add it all up, and you'll think, I did all that?! I highly recommend this exercise! When I was 25,  I left college to take a dream job in San Diego.  I looked about 12; I had braces on my teeth.  I was so excited to be moving to such a wonderful place! There were 250 candidates for this job, and *I* got it!! By the time I was 30, I had battled through the depression of homesickness, compounded by the realization that even though I was getting three times the salary as previously in Kansas, the cost of living was about four times as high.  San Diego’s not much fun if you ain’t got the dough-ray-me.  Eventually I settled in and adjusted.  I met Dave & we were having a good time on the free cultural events that were perks of his job at KPBS.  At 30 years old, I was recently married and preparing for a move to the Cincinnati area for a job Dave was taking.   Looking back, it seems like the changes between age 30 and 35 were the most profound. The difference between life in San Diego and life in Northern KY (Cincinnati burbs) was like two completely different lifetimes!  We went from theater, orchestra, and opera tickets, dinner out regularly at a favorite restaurant (The Gathering in Mission Hills), and frankly, not many responsibilities; to being a month from finally finishing my undergrad, 3-year-old Robin with us, and Eben on the way, and being just about as broke as I’ve ever been in my life (only this time with kids).  The only thing that was similar was the number of really good friends we  made along the way. By the time I was 40 years old, Robin was 8  and Eben was  5½. We were still broke, but finally owned our own home, a rancher with a TON of character.  That one-story house with a basement had FIVE doors! I was almost finished with graduate school and we were looking for a move to someplace with better schools.   My mother, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law had battled cancer over the past couple of years, and my mother-in-law passed away a couple of months before my 40th birthday.  My own mother was recovering, but my father-in-law was sick again.  I was feeling the loss of my mother-in-law most heavily through the eyes and lives of my kids. Their loss was far greater than mine, since I had been blessed with so many more years of knowing her. By the age of 45, we had made that move to a place with better schools three years ago.  My father-in-law  passed away only four months after my mother-in-law, and their absence made the whole world look differently. Suddenly, WE were the old folks. I remember noticing this change in my world view while driving down the highway the day after I learned of his death. Not a single thing looked the same as it had the day before. Not the bend in the road, not the Cincinnati skyline. We decided to move to the Philly burbs, into their house, which was a good move on most levels.  I began my new career as a college librarian at a job I got just two weeks after the move. But it  took me that much farther away from my own parents in Kansas. By the time I was 45, three years after our move, my mother had been dealt a second round of breast cancer, and had passed away as well. When I turned 50, my hair was only about a quarter of an inch long after breast cancer treatment.  I had been diagnosed the previous February, after an incredible year of training for and then racing Ironman Lake Placid.  Over the course of this five years, I had rediscovered running, and taken up triathlon after learning to swim.  I qualified for the Boston Marathon running Richmond, to prove to myself that I could do an Ironman.  As I swam Mirror Lake in the rain for the Ironman, fog rising off the water, I thought about my Mom and how she would NEVER have believed this!  Between surgery for breast cancer and the first chemotherapy treatment, I got to run Boston, an incredible experience.  After chemo and radiation, my Dad passed away. I hadn't been able to visit while in cancer treatment, and he never knew of my diagnosis, a decision I made to allow him to die a bit more peacefully. These 5 years more than any previously turned me into the strongest, most optimistic version of myself yet, and taught me what true friendship is.  I learned to slow down and really experience life. It's nice that this year's plans are centered around the theme of "giving back." I decided to to that before I wrote this, but it seems logical now, having done the exercise. Who knows what the rest of the current five years will hold? I can't wait to see what's next!