What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

 I feel like I've lived many lives. Childhood. College. Post-college in Eugene. Moving to Portland. Having children. Losing my dad. Losing Emily. Covid. All these feel like different lives, and I would have trouble remembering the person I was before and after each step. As time fades on you get to an age where you start to take account of your own mortality. Time goes by faster the older we get. As a child, we want to be an adult, and as an adult, we yearn for the carefree bliss of childhood. What do I want my legacy to be? Will I be a grandparent? What lives will my children live as adults? What will life be like for me once I no longer have to work? I've spent most of my life sacrificing for others, sometimes at the expense of myself, and I wonder emotionally how I will handle life when I don't have to live that way. These things I cannot know until I make it that far. I also understand each day is a gift, and each day could be our last, although some days I don't have the energy to live that day to its fullest. I want to live in the moment and savor these last few years of having my kids still both living with me every day. Soon, that will not be something I'll have, and I may find myself alone. That day will be the start of another new life. Probably not the last life I live, but certainly one of the last ones. I want that life to be a meaningful one but I don't know what that means yet.