I still have that urge to complete a list of things that I want to do. But I also have some things that my attitude has become so what? or who cares? Readjusting priorities.

When I was young, and would get all bothered about some thing, my father would calmly say,"In 10 years, it wont matter." Man, did that get to me and, at the same time, made perfect sense. He was 50-ish and very wise.
There is a time for all these feeling about life and doing or not doing. And of course the best is to have the advantage to do it all gradually to completion. Since we can't count on that we are back to "living in the now." A very good place to be and damned difficult to achieve.

For almost 30 years I've been remindng myself that every day I'm here is a gift -- and some days it's a nicer gift than others.

Some days, the thought that I have less life left to live than I have already lived is a panic-inducer.

A real gut punch.

Perhaps I am not old enough yet to see things differently, but I just cannot accept my own mortality with anything less than a nagging fear right now.

Perhaps that will change - I hope so. I hate counting days like a dwindling piggy bank.

First off, thank you, Ronni for "getting" what I said and what I felt.
You captured it all so succinctly. I have no regrets whatsoever...I learned years ago during my nurses training to never be one of those people on their death bed, saying, "How I wish I had..."
So from my mid-20's on, I made sure that I DID all that I wanted to do, visited all the places I wanted to visit, accomplished the most meaningful things to me. And at age 60, I can truthfully say I did.
You understood what I meant about enjoying these later years so much that I just don't want them to end. Life is so much "easier" now without the pressure of raising children, competing, working, etc. And I guess it's this ease of life I'm reluctant to let go of.
But I must thank you tremendously for reminding me about "disengagement." I saw it ALL the time with my elderly patients in my nursing career and you made made remember how I used to marvel that nature has a way of doing this for us...allowing us to slowly disengage....preparing us for the final journey in this lifetime. So thanks, Ronni. THIS time I'll try to remember it.

Dee,

I can relate to you. I'm not sliding into the aging thing with nearly the grace and confidence that I see/hear others talk of. I keep wondering why, and come up with all kinds of reasons, but it seems that ultimately the reasons don't matter. Lots of times it makes me feel, once again, that I'm not smart enough or good enough or whatever, to age gracefully and accept the changes and go on. And I hate that. I figure I'm the ultimate boomer, delaying having children to have a career, having children in my late 30's, just in the last 2 years, seeing them out the door, having no retirement "plan" and figure I'll probably have to work until I die. I just hope I don't end up trying to scramble for a job when I'm 66 YO that pays minimum wage. I'm OK now, but the future looks scary to me...and aging gracefully doesn't really seem like a priority right now...just making it through is on my mind. Just "being" is a state that I can't even think about, but would like to...but maybe if I stop worrying and start just being, everything will work out alright...

Several years before my husband's mother died (at 84), she said (in German), "I am curious about this last great experience." My respect and admiration for her, already great, just swelled.

She lived in communist Romania and we visited her once or twice a year. When she finally had the chance to emigrate, she felt it was too late. She had lived most of her adult life in the same house and she said that in any other setting "I would not be I."

Fortunately, we had several days' warning of her death -- she had a flu that was turning into pneumonia, and she was rambling deliriously on the phone about laying flowers on family members' graves, and I suddenly knew we had to get there, fast. We got there on Friday and she died on Sunday morning, holding our hands. Here, she would have been given antibiotics and recovered; she was strong. But they allowed her to go while she was still strong and independent, which seemed to be her wish. Probably ten days before her death she was still splitting wood and pumping water.

It was a struggle for her to die because her heart was strong. And at one clear moment between deliriums she commented with surprise, "The end comes so hard!" and I knew that she was, in fact, experiencing the last great experience.

My dad died in may, 2003. the day before, I had come into town to help him take care of my mother who just had a minor stroke. He made the comment to me, "Sunny, if I die tomorrow, it'll be OK. I've done the most important things I wanted to do.
And you know what, he did die the next morning.it was a shock to us but he had picked his time..

I remember at fifty expressing the view the last half of my life was ahead of me. I have occasionally given momentary thought since then, to the fact I probably have fewer years left than I've lived. I become most aware of that fact at the times a contemporary dies. The thought flashes through my mind, I must be approaching that average life span year, that my time here could be up, but my mind doesn't dwell on that fact.

Somehow, I've thought I might engage in activities after all, that I had earlier necessarily postponed for a number of years, as a consequence of adjusting to my husband's health limitations. Recently, I was surprised to find during those years that lapsed, from when my adjustment began to occur and when it ceased with my husband's death, I had gradually changed more than my conscious mind had bothered to assimilate. So, part of my process coping without my husband has unexpectedly included a reassessment of myself, what I want to do, in ways I had not anticipated.

Thoughts of leaving this life cause me only to regret that I'm going to miss knowing what the future will be like. I just don't want to miss anything. Disengagement is likely part of that gradual exit process. That state is also not unlike that which accompanies depression.

You, Terri and others commenting here describe well many of my thoughts, views and experience.

Ronni, thanks for this very apt post. Having just come home from trying to ensure that my brother's last four weeks of life passed the way he wanted them to, I've concluded that relationships are the most important thing to focus on. Amba's comment points this out: her mother-in-law knew how she wanted to live, and her relationship with her son and Amba benefitted them all in the end. How about the phrase "a beautiful death"?

My dad died from hospital complications after a car accident, but he had been withdrawing and becoming more and more remote (only repeating stories too) for the year that preceded this. The way he died seemed to be his exit point, but the dying started a year or so before. I think of death as a season of life not just as an event.

I have to trust that I'll be ready for the stages of life, not right away but in time. I never thought I would want to kick my toddlers off the breast, or want them to move out when they were older, but it happened.