Back in the summer of 2018, I took a bucket list trip to Alaska, a cruise with several of my closest friends.  It was an amazing trip, all that I hoped it would be and much more.  I wrote a little about it HERE in a short-lived series of posts titled Sailing Toward Sixty.  When I wrote the initial post about taking the Alaska trip, I intended it to be a series that I would write over three years, chronicling the journey toward my sixtieth birthday on December 28, 2021.  As you can see from my lack of writing between then and now, I failed at that intention.  Really, I have failed in general at writing over the past couple years.  I’m not sure why.  I just did.  It is what it is.  I can’t change that fact, so now I move forward.

During this year of COVIDtide, we all have had much time to think and reflect on ourselves and our lives.  Whether we wanted to or not, we had to face who we are and who we are not, what brings us joy and what doesn’t, what is worthy of our time and energy and what isn’t, what we need to live and what we don’t, what is worth fighting for and what is not.  Sometimes the realizations from these ponderings were not what I expected.  Some were even challenging and scary.  Even though I haven’t been writing, I discovered that I wanted to be.  I miss taking the time to stop and think about my days, collating my experiences and emotions into meaningful words.  I miss not having those words on which to look back and remember the big and little moments that, when stitched together in blog posts,  become the quilt that is my life.

Today is my 59th birthday.  Another thing that I have done with my time of reflection during 2020 is to make a list of 60 things that I want to accomplish by my sixtieth birthday.  There are big things and small things on the list.  There are some fun things and some not so fun but necessary things.  (After 50 those “regular” colonoscopies start rolling around every ten years.) Some items on the list are things that I have wanted to do for awhile but felt that I didn’t have the time or energy to give to them.  And still others are things that I think that maybe I want to do, but admit that I could be wrong.  And, as my sixtieth year begins, I admit that there are still a few blanks not yet filled in on the list.  I’m sure I will think of a few more things that I want to do as we, hopefully, emerge from the crazy existence that has been the past nine months.

If you have read this far, you have probably figured out that the first action that was added to my 60 By Sixty list is to return to regular blogging.  At the moment I started to write those words on my list, I wasn’t sure what that would look like and I wasn’t convinced that I wouldn’t fail again.  Still though, I wrote that first entry with conviction.  Whatever the reason, it was important that writing be number one on my list.  As my list and my thought process around blogging expanded, it dawned on me that what I needed to do was marry the two.  I should blog about journeying through my sixtieth year checking the 60 items, one by one, off of my list   So, that is what I’m going to do.

If you are interested, I’d love for you to join me on this, my sixtieth trip around the sun.

This is what day one of year sixty looked like.  Because of COVID, we had no big celebration.  That is actually OK.  Weber and I had a leisurely breakfast that involved coffee and the crossword and sudoku puzzles from the newspaper.  I took an awesome treadmill run through Norway, thanks to YouTube.  I then spent some time reading all of the sweet birthday messages on Facebook.  I had a regularly scheduled visit to the chiropractor that was followed by Florentine pizza delivered for dinner and a Zoom meeting with our church small group rounded out my day.

And after I post this, a night cap of cheesecake will finish off my day.  It has been a simple, but very happy birthday.  Thank you to everyone who shared a small piece of it with me.