Promises to keep

Next year, I want to travel to places I've never been to. Quite often, and especially on cloudy and rainy days, on days when my four walls have worn me out, I make promises like this and I mean each and every one of them.

We retired early because we were exhausted from all our work; and we had never had time and money to do much vacationing in places we had dreamed about.  Now that we have time, we notice something we didn't know back in our working days. Then, we slept five hours, worked fifteen, and took care of family and household chores the rest of the time. What we wanted more than anything was more time.

Time when nothing was required of us.

Now that we have time, days and weeks and months with no real important stuff that needs done, we find out that what we really want is energy and passion to start something new, something meaningful and important, something that will allow time to slip by.

We spend so much time just going to the doctors and laboratories associated with our medical conditions, and because  these are too far away,  spending the night at a motel, visiting with family nearby, and shopping in stores that have more than the stores we can access regularly, these medical" necessities suck up all our discretionary funds.

When we return home, we are beat.

It takes two, three days to recuperate from all that traveling. You see, we are genuinely conscientious of every bite we put in our mouths due to our medical conditions. But, when we are away from home, we sin with abandon. Dessert? Sure! Extra gravy? Definitely! Trying a new dish at a new restaurant allows us to forget that these visits are necessities through and through and that after the trip, no more steak frites, no more creme brulee, no more Elmer's Special Breakfast with  Dutch Pancake on the side. Our lives are measured by teaspoons of low-fat salad dressings, mixed greens and  four ounces of broiled fish or broiled chicken. I can be as creative as I want when I cook, as long as I measure carefully, and often.

We have our fiftieth wedding anniversary coming up.

I wonder if we'll have the energy and the resources to pull off a trip of a lifetime to match the importance of this date. I wonder if we should just be happy and satisfied to take our medical mini vacations as long as we can. After all, as long as we keep going, year after year, and enjoy the little pleasures we encounter, who needs anything more?