Turning 70 and entering the year of the Crone

This is MY year and no, I'm generally not a me me me person, didn't grow up that way, don't live that way and am not going to die that way, but then who knows what my last thoughts will be, perhaps "damnit, it shoulda been all about me"...

This is a significant year; it's the year in which we will celebrate thirty years of marriage. It's a year that will prove everybody wrong that "they'll never make it". It is the year I will acknowledge that I will officially become a "Crone" in other words turn seventy. I've read that one can become a "Crone" at the age of fifty already, but I would never have been ready for it then, I felt and was young and vigorous with so many adventures yet ahead of me. At seventy, with more years dying behind me than I'll have ahead of me I am ready. I am ready to live my life however I damn well please, the year in which I will celebrate that you can pick your friends, but not your family and sometimes it is better that way.

It is the year in which I will have buried yet another dear friend thanks to cancer and it is the year that I will count my blessings of things I have and things yet to come.


It is the year in which I will part with possessions and in which I am ready to acknowledge that I have too much stuff and the year in which I'll start to try to live more simply, remember I said "try", it is not always possible.


It is the year in which I thought I would need to celebrate big and I mean BIG in the biggest way possible. It is now that I realize that I won't have to celebrate at all because the celebration is inside of me and doesn't have to be an external thing. I will get some calls, will get some cards and we'll take three of my closest friends to dinner, the friends who have walked with me through thick and thin, the friends who like my husband love me unconditionally. It is the year in which I will start dancing to my own tune, whatever and whichever way I want and need. This is my gift to myself and my celebration to seventy years of living the best way I knew how with the resources I had at the time I needed them. It is the celebration of myself to myself and to entering the life of the Crone.