Michael: Dear Abby

The preying mantis,
When it holds still, is almost
Imperceptible.

Thursday, October 27, 2016

My sister wrote me a Dear Abby letter the other day and I ended up writing myself advice.

She recently retired and is anxious about how she should spend her time. Right now she’s spending most of her time cleaning and watching T.V. She doesn’t feel she knows what her purpose should be for the rest of her life.

I do know she’s mentioned getting a small camper and just traveling where her inclination takes her. I think that would be a blast, but she doesn’t feel she can afford it right now. So I advised her to do the research anyway and even is she can’t do it this minute, planning for it would give her some direction and would possibly give her the impetus to work part-time or do whatever she needs to do financially to make it happen.

I also suggested she see if she could find some way to do a small chunk of that experience to see if that would be a worthwhile pursuit. Maybe a friend of hers and she could rent a small R.V. for a couple of weeks and give it a go.

And this is how that advice comes back to me. Years ago I bought a book about various long trails in the United States. I’ve done several of them but haven’t thought about pursuing any of the others for years now. But in a few months we’re going to visit Kimme’s mom in Michigan. So I checked on line to see if there’s any long trails near the trail race we’ll be doing when we visit  and, yes, there is. The North Country Trail that goes from New York to North Dakota.

I won’t have time to do all of it but I should be able to get out for a few days on a section that run through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. So it seems I may have been waiting for the opportunity to take myself up on my own advice.