To boldly go....

where I've never gone before.
There is a voice at the back of my head whispering---"final countdown".
So, the goal is not a bucket list---I'm basically healthy and a good 15 years from the expected age of death.
I'm also not used to a lot of good luck.  My Grandmother died at 94 less than a month from her agreement to go live in a nursing home.  She had been living at home, on a huge ranch, alone with some assist from children and other relatives especially the last year when she lost a lot of vision to macular degeneration and had several strokes affecting her ability to find the right words.  It was frustrating, but she had no weakness, paralysis or paresthesia.  She just would call things something that was not what they were, and be aware of it.
In the general scheme of things, I'd take that after 93 years of basically good health.
My mother died at 75 after 11 years of slow but steady neurological decline from progressive supranuclear palsy.  It took 5 years to get a diagnosis because: 1. its not very common, and 2. she could not bear the thought of something happening in her brain, so she refused to see neurologist after the first one said he thought the problem was in her brain. (he was the first doctor I took her too, didn't go back until 5 years later when it was obvious that it was not: 1. allergies, 2. bad glasses, 3. ear infection, 4. eye problem, or 5. heart problem.  (yes, a heart problem sounds better to some of us than a brain problem--I'm not sure why a heart problem doesn't sound better than a brain problem to everyone).  It took 5 years after she died to remember her before she got sick.  It drew a line in the whole family's existence, before and after the disease.
My father died at 82, and while his last 2 years were bad, he died as he lived, with as little physician interference as possible.  He was past his expected years of life and outlived most of his male ancestors.
So, am I feeling morbid?
Maybe.
But my whole life (not just mine, but I'm speaking for myself) is about choices.  Every choice alters the available next choice, and time waits for no man, (or woman).  So I'm trying to figure out, what is next, what can I actually do versus what plans are pipedreams.  
1. I'm not going to become a prima ballerina--reality is, that was a 7 year old dream that had no idea what genetics and puberty could do to unhinge that dream.  I do think that 10 years of ballet was not a bad thing, just not a life goal accomplisher. (especially since performing in public made be physically ill)
2. I'm not going to be a world-renowned archeologist (the dream of 9 year old me)--in addition to not being able to walk more than 5 miles without my ankles hurting for days, I'm allergic to bullets and most of those digs are in war zones.  I CAN still read about other's finds and be grateful archeology exists.
3.   I'm not going to write the Great American Novel, mostly because I hate to proofread, and also because everyone secretly wants to write it, even people that have never written.  It's like we all occasionally have a great story land in our mind, but only those that can figure out how to get it onto paper (or computer) before it travels all the way through the mind and disintegrates like dust, can succeed at this.  Both my parents wanted to write one.  My mother wrote spirals full, but never finished a story.  My father had one and lost it on page 51.  (Until that book, I didn't think he could read and write, who knew that he was just already losing his visual accommodation and too stubborn to wear reading glasses till I was 20.  He was 38 when I was born, but no one every totally gets that their parents had a good bit of life before they were born.)
4. Last on the list is Artist, and that is not yet closed to me, although the competition is fierce if I feel a need for recognition or honors.  Since I've never had either of those 2 things before, and because most of the people I know and respect and am proud to have the acquaintance of are also artists that may or may not be well-known, I'm going to consider this to be the one path that is open to me as long as I care to travel it.
So
So, the goal is to go from occasional painter and potter to daily creator.
Daily.
So that the process is like a friend.
So that the release of those vaguely seen images in my head, in sound asleep or wide awake dreams becomes as common to me as getting up and going to work was.
Was.
Work people say, "do you miss work yet?"  Do you miss us?  and that is not the same question.  I miss them. But we no longer have a context.  I miss work not at all.  It was not MY life work.  It was a job.  And a very frustrating one, since it was required by law but not loved by those that like things the way they were.   It was always starting something, but never finishing anything---because the projects ran out of steam in the midst of all the push-back against change.  The others in the department understood that frustration and thus were important, not just for the job, but for the survival of the frustration.
That is why I'm keeping the blogs.
One to vent---and one to keep me from setting down in the recliner and binge-watching old tv shows while waiting for nothing.
It's time for me to take my last remaining choice--and live like a creator of art.

Wish me luck---I need it.