So there we go.
Another one gone.
Well; in a month it will be.
Here endeth another decade.
Decades.
I lived for 1 and a half years of the 60’s.
All of the 70’s.
All of the 80’s.
All of the 90’s.
The noughties.
And it’s looking like I’ll make it through the 2010 to 2020 decade, too.
So that’s 6 decades so far.
Dead.
I’ll leave my 7th decade (2020 to 2030) aged 61.
I’ll leave my 8th decade (2030 to 2040) aged 71.
And, if statistically on-par, I’ll leave my 9th decade (2040 to 2050) dead.
I’ll have died in 2049.
Aged 80.
The List.
The big question for me then.
(Whilst I’m on this ‘decades’ thing).
Is what am I going to do with this next decade, then?
This 2020 – 2030 decade.
What’s on the list?
What will happen to me?
And what will I make happen?
Well; if I manage to stay alive, these things will very likely occur.
I’ll see Izobel become a teenager.
I’ll have no mortgage.
I’ll go bald.
I’ll have a life-threatening or life-shaking health scare.
I’ll get married.
I’ll become increasingly eccentric.
(In both how I look and what I do).
I’ll commit to more fitness – as part of my life, not on the edge of my life.
I’ll drink less regularly.
I’ll need two or three new hobbies.
(These hobbies will.
I sense.
Be revisiting things that I used to do.
Or just plain odd.
Or both).
I’ll still be working and I will want my work to be really, really significant and valued by a lot of people.
I’ll be volunteering more.
(I’ll be increasingly generous with my time and my learning).
I’ll live somewhere rural.
(With an AGA and a log fire).
I’ll have a soft-top car again.
And I’ll cook more.
Properly.
Older.
It’s strange as I get older.
I am not really thinking:
Things I want to do before I die.
But I am definitely thinking about legacy.
And in my next decade.
The 2030 to 2040 decade.
(Should I get there).
I will be thinking about legacy even more so.
And all I really want as my legacy.
Based on today’s thinking.
Are two things.
Two things.
I’d like Izobel to be aware that she can change the world.
And that the difference she can make for herself, for other people and for the world could be seismic.
Huge.
Fundamental.
And secondly.
Rather more selfishly.
I want to live forever.
Live Forever.
I want to live forever because I want Izobel.
Every now and then.
To ask herself:
What would my dad have said?
Or
What would my dad have done?
And this is good for me to remember.
Because it guides me each day.
To make sure that, by my actions today.
Izobel.
And Izobel’s children.
Will know the answer to those questions tomorrow.
