Thoughts of the end, and a beginning

Death permeates my thoughts, of late.

Going about my daily routine, I sometimes glance in the mirror, and pause to scrutinize the face staring back at me. I see the undeniable etchings of time, and realize I'm staring half a century in the face, if not squarely, then surely glimpsing it as I round that next bend.

It isn't only age that turns my thoughts to the inevitable. It is the love I have for my children, a love far more ferocious, neverending and desperate than I ever imagined.

I have other thoughts along this dark, depressing alley: If, by some horrible chop of fate, I go tomorrow, what is there left of me for my kids? When asked, years later, about their mother, what will they have to say?

On Mother's day this year, the teacher had the preschoolers answer some questions about their mothers. My son said my name was "Mama" and that my favorite thing to do was "laundry."

While this melted my heart with its simple adorableness, it shocked me to realize that, to him, I am a nameless person whose ultimate joy is washing underpants and sweaty socks on Sundays.

That is so...basic.

I want to be so much more than basic, to my children.

Which is why I think it's time to supplement this superficial blog about weight and looks, and start a second journal, writing on a much deeper level.

Why start another blog, you ask, when there are as many on the Internet as there are sand fleas on a camel?

Because, if my expiration date is near, (or even if it's far, and hopefully, it is) years from now I want my children to have something of me aside from old clothes, dusty shoes and pixels of moments in time.

I want them to have the glasses through which I view the world. I want to show them the paths I've trodden, those over which I flew, and those I was afraid to take.

And hopefully, they'll find a shiny nugget or two, in the silt of experience I've gathered over forty-four-plus years.

I have no title for it yet.

But I can promise content.

Join me.