Wow. Who knew that 100 days ago, I’d be able to keep at blogging one blog a day for 100 days? WOO HOO!! And I knew at about blog 25 or so that I’d carry it on out to 365 days of at least one blog a day. !00 blogs is just a milestone, a good one, but just a milestone. I remember while training for a marathon that when we got up to the real long runs of 15 miles or more each weekend our coach used to tell us to imagine that we could throw out a line to a point ahead of us to pull us in and to keep throwing a line and pulling us in until we got to the finish. It really helped. That’s what this 100 blogs milestone has done for me. It’s helping me to keep on going and to be grateful for the days that I’ve got under my belt already.

I witnessed another milestone today when I went to help a good friend/mentor of mine move from her home of twenty years into assisted living. Now I don’t know about you, but the very words “assisted living” echo chills up and down my spine. At least that was how I felt until I visited my aunt and uncle in their swanky assisted living apartment in Arizona. It opened my eyes to the possibility that things could be different–in a good way.

This friend of mine is only 12 years older than me. She’s been wrangling with Lupus and heart attacks and diabetes and everything else that could be thrown at her these past 15 years or so. I’m grateful that she will be in a nice place where she can feel safe and autonomous and know that help is as close as a phone call and right out her door if she needs it. She has lots of light and is in a third story apartment up in the trees with a nice big “L” shaped patio. I think I secretly like this place better than her home. Even though she was exhausted today from lack of sleep and moving, we did have some laughs over the supposed dress code for dining, if you wanted to dine in the main dining room, which is casual elegant. My friend noted that mostly the crowd was the polyester wearing sort. I think she may have been rebelling today by wearing her jeans and a bright maroon Mexican blouse. This is a big milestone for her to have made the decision to move to assisted living one year after her husband passed away. I can’t fathom the courage it has taken her to accept where she is physically, mentally, and emotionally to make this decision; however, she was the one who taught me how to keep things simple and to take the very crucial step of admitting that I was powerless over a whole hell of a lot. I know right after that always comes the dawning of the light that there just may be something bigger than ourselves at the helm of this ship we call life.

I think her humor is going to really help her through this change. She was talking about how the halls are made wide enough so that people can pass each other in walkers. Did you know that there is walker etiquette? Who knew! I don’t know how they decide which walker-ee has the right of way but usually it is polite for one of the walkers to pull towards the wall for the other to pass. They don’t have any traffic lights in the hallways that I could remember.

I almost made a scene at my friends apartment today but I reeled myself in to composure when we were out on her patio so that she could smoke her cigarette and she dropped her lighter and we watched it slide down the roof shingles into the gutter. I really could have climbed over the railing, crawled on my knees to the gutter and gotten her cigarette lighter for her but first I realized that most people my age don’t do things like that and so maybe it wouldn’t be so hot for me to do it at this place and second I really don’t like that my friend smokes anyway so why help her?! Her son ended up having an extra lighter so all ended well. I love that I still have the impulse to climb around rooftops like that.

Milestones are good. Milestones help us to mark where we have come from and see where we are going. I don’t know if it is an American thing, but I sure do have to take a moment to look at milestones in my life and acknowledge them. It seems like we’re always pushing forward to the next and the next and the next while all the while we’re running right past these really important milestones in our lives. Take ’em in. Drink ’em in. Breathe.

What are some of the milestones in your life? Do you have any coming up soon? How do you feel about them? What do they say about where you have been and the choices you have made?