Solar system

A family is it's own solar system with no two alike. The old expression is that one chooses their friends but not their family and connections between the members can be as destructive or sustaining as circumstances permit. Human beings in their complex construction interact within this structure while trying to maintain their unique identities. Our psyches deal with personal hurts and joys and we feel different levels of confidence in opening ourselves and the risks inherent in sharing them.

With age I have found that a certain healthy distancing from my own solar system benefited me as perhaps being the oldest brought with it expectations I cared to no longer fulfill. More appropriately I would say I could not. For families come with expectations entrenched in lived history and trying to remove them is no easy feat. Here is where the pandemic provided me an unexpected respite.

If we have spent any significant portion of our lives playing a role, leaving the stage may not be obvious but sometimes it must be done if we are to be whole. For in the end we are the ones responsible for our own happiness and all the other members of the family for theirs. If you have a penchant for helping others before yourself there comes a time when you must take priority and tend to your own little wounds.

Retirement has a way of leaving you much time to reflect on your life, and in so doing you can trace your previous steps so clearly. The exercise being less about bemoaning past mistakes and more about coalescing them into a life lesson which allows you to hopefully move forward with increased perspective.