Pat Bean's blog

Aging my Way

What I write is a record of what’s currently banging around in my mind. Sometimes my thoughts, once shared though a pen on a blank page or my fingers on a computer’s keyboard, surprise me. Just as often they help me connect the dots in the tangled web of my thoughts.

Sometimes I choose to share what I’ve written, and sometimes I don’t. It may be because what I’ve written is a jumbled mess, or it may be that I think it’s too personal.

But what I do know is that what I’ve written one day, I won’t be able to write another day. Even a small span of time will have changed how I view life.  This is the joy, and the beauty, of being a journal keeper.

For 50 years now, I’ve written down my thoughts. Sometimes the journal keeping is sporadic, especially in the earlier years when six months or more of my life is sometimes missing. Sometimes, however, I’ve journaled daily, as is the usual case these days.

I like having a record of my life, one that shows me how much I’ve changed, how much I’ve grown, how sometimes I’ve even made a U-Turn in my core.

I’m thankful I’m a writer and journal keeper because, as Vita Sackville West said, “The writer catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting…”

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.