It’s hard for me to believe, but it’s nonetheless true. I turned seventy-four years old in May of this year.. Life passed by quickly. It seems I’ve moved closer to the end than the beginning. And the sad truth is that in the last years of my life, time has passed very quickly. We moved to North Carolina from New Jersey when my husband and I both retired. And we have been living here in NC for nine years. We relocated to the south because of the lower cost of living. And a slower lifestyle.

I haven’t always been a person who liked to be busy, and the first year after I moved to NC. I volunteered in the Guardian Ad Litem. I had to take a college course before I could start volunteering. A Guardian ad Litem works within the family court system. I was assigned a family who seemed unable to recognize that their children should be protected from harm. Their children needed to live in a clean and healthy environment and eat three meals a day. No matter how many times I tried to discuss the care their children needed, I couldn’t get the adults to realize that if they didn’t take proper care of their children, these children would not remain in their homes. There was often a lack of funds, and parents or family members had addictions. I found that no matter how many times I talked to them about proper care of their children, they didn’t change their behavior.

As a result, I decided this was not what I wanted to do for my retirement. I had spent years working with at-risk kids, and found it rewarding to some degree. But the parents of these children had significant problems with abusive spouses and drug and alcohol use.

As a result, I decided to find a different outlet for my time and energy. I had always loved animals, and I discovered an animal sanctuary twenty minutes away from my home. And I volunteered there for nine years. I took care of parrots, macaws, pigeons, doves, etc. I always loved animals. But, at some point, I decided that at 74 years old. I was getting too old to continue doing this work for much longer.

So, here I am truly retired and putting all my energy into my family, my pets, and my hobbies. I have been writing short stories and memoirs for the past nine years and publish a new story every week. It is on Facebook and called WRITE ON.

And just recently, I decided to start painting and drawing again. I attended Temple University, Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, and I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts and teaching credentials. I graduated with magnum cum laude. I was thirty-six when I started as a Freshman and graduated as a senior at forty-one. The oldest graduate in my class. It was challenging, but it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Not only was my age a factor, but the fact that I was married and had two young children, who were three and six when I started. They were in day care. I didn’t take any Summer classes because I wanted to spend the summer with my children. I can’t say it was easy, but I graduated at the top of my class and made a great many friends of all ages while I attended Temple University for four years. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

The Race

After I graduated, I found out that elementary schools in New Jersey were no longer teaching art in public or Catholic Schools. And as a result, I was unable to find employment in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. I felt that Temple University should have informed me and my fellow students that there wouldn’t be any teaching positions when we graduated.

My response to this unfortunate news was that it wasn’t going to stop me from teaching art. We ended up finding a large home that was for sale, which used to be a doctor’s office. We decided to sell our present home and renovate this much larger home. I could teach art in the rooms that had formerly been a doctor’s office. And so I taught art for many years to people who lived in Pitman and the surrounding area. I taught children during the day, and adults in the evening and on Saturdays.

So, here I am many years later, and I’m seventy-four years old. I no longer teach art, and I have retired from volunteering at the animal sanctuary. And so, I’ve decided to start painting again and continue writing. I have written one book, and I’m going to try to get it published. And I have written over two hundred short stories. I believe I have many other stories yet to be written, and perhaps I will write another fictional novel.

And who knows what I will do next. As long as I have the energy and the imagination, I will continue to write and paint, and draw and make things. It is my nature, and I’m not giving up yet. I may even consider creating three-dimensional artwork. I haven’t done that since I attended art school at Temple University. But, as long as I have breath in my body and an active imagination, I will keep going until I have no breath left in my body.