Count Down to 60

Yesterday was my birthday. Yesterday I celebrated 59 years since the moment of my entrance to the world. As I went through the day I began to think of the future that is so quickly approaching, and of the past. I know that as each milestone is reached we do this, once we reach a certain age anyway..but what I decided to attempt and actually hope to accomplish is to keep a daily journal of my journey to 60. I hope to record memories of growing up here on this dirt road and of the experiences away from here. I want to discuss all the things that you would expect to find in a blog and some that would surprise you. I want to be honest and at times imaginative and dreamy. I want to hope for the future and that I am allowed to see 60 and beyond.
I don't fear growing older, especially since there were times that I wondered if I would see the next day.
As a teenager I had what I took to be a near drowning experience. Whether it was actually as bad as I thought at the time, or if I simply panicked, I don't know. But I do know that I can still hear the sound of the water as I sank, I can remember the struggles to regain my footing and the gasping for breath once I broke the surface. My nightmare, is that I will die by drowning. So I avoid water that is too deep to keep my footing or that I cannot see the bottom. I have never learned how to swim and that doesn't help. Maybe some day.
As a twenty-something I was in a bad marriage. The next to the last night was the last straw. It took a very imaginative strategy that involved some deception of several people but I had to escape and I hoped that at some point they would forgive me. I packed a couple of bags, got a ride to the bus station and waited for the bus. Someone however gave me away. It took two police officers and a bus driver who waited to get me out of Louisiana and on my way home.
In my late twenties I was involved in an auto accident where a van broadsided the hatchback pinto I was driving. The car was a total loss, but I wasn't hurt too badly.
As a thirty-something I had a vehicle rear end my car, hitting my car so hard it knocked it twenty feet, putting me out of work for several weeks. I had stopped for a red light and the man driving the car that hit me told the officer he thought I was going on and he had to as he had to use the bathroom. Really?
At fifty, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was caught very early, the surgery and treatments not easy, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
For most of this time, thoughts of the future were not foremost in my mind. They did sneak in from time to time, but it wasn't until the big 50 that I realized that I had gotten much further than I had thought I would so now what?
I started eating healthier. I quit drinking soda except for the times when I'm not feeling well and the soda will settle my stomach. I started walking (something that I have not done lately but I use the heat as an excuse). I have learned to lean more on my faith and not myself.
But sitting here now, on the day after my 59th birthday I am looking forward. I know that we are not promised tomorrow, which is why I will take this one day at a time. I don't know that I will be able to post every day, there may be days that I'm not able for what ever reason to get online, but I'll attempt to make a note and get it here as quickly as possible.
What does the future hold? I can make guesses, but I won't. I know what I hope for, but who knows if that will come to be? Only God knows and I will wait for His time of revelation. For now, I am one day into the count down to 60 and if Lord willing I make it, I hope that I can count on my friends to help me celebrate big.