You will receive this on the last day of January 2026, a month that included marvelous happenings, flew by, while parts endured longer than I wanted.
Especially this week. I could rouse no energy and wanted to sleep all day and night. Nothing tasted delicious. I didn’t take a shower or wash my hair. One day I didn’t get dressed. All I could manage was an abbreviated Tai Chi Chih practice. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t meditate.
During routine moments, I wondered if I was coming down with one of the new terrifying COVID variants. My left big toe hurt. I had trouble walking. I soaked it. All I wanted to do was to crawl back in bed after propping myself up at my new desk and writing for twenty-seven minutes. I just wanted to sleep. I found it difficult to remember positive things. I found it difficult to be positive. I didn’t want to be honest with people about my feelings of dismay. I found it almost impossible to say, with a pleasant expression on my face, that I am eighty years old.
This is about aging I thought. I don’t have as much energy at this age and when it’s cold and I can’t force myself to go out, I despair. I’m going to bed soon.
I want to be a person who handles the ups and downs of life with radiant grace and inexhaustible patience. After expressing myself, saying all these things I usually don’t say, I’m beginning to feel better.
If you open this on Saturday, tomorrow will be February.
So do you have rough spots too? How do you handle them?
IMAGE: I’m excited when I see the moon through the trees and usually try to capture it with my phone camera like I did Thursday night. Enjoy!
