I’ve been pondering (to quote one of my new favorite bloggers) that I stand on the threshold of 70 and I’ve only 10-15 years of travel left in me. This starkly scares me. I usually figure two or three significant times of travel per year. Twenty to forty-five seems like a goodly amount, but it’s that lower end that makes me wonder: if I’ve only 20 trips left, and I want to go to Europe more than once, to Hawaii, to places in the USA, to just experience certain periods of unfettered wandering…how much is left in me?
It’s funny. You think for much of your life, “hey, there’s plenty of time for that,” because you’re 35 or 45 and decades stretch out before you. Then you get up toward retirement, and frankly you’re just thinking about that retirement. There are a lot of channels to negotiate to retire: income when you’re not working, riding herd on the expenses, and the projects you always thought you’d do but you just didn’t have the time or the money to do them. You negotiate that when suddenly a little global pandemic kinda s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s that whole process out. When the world comes to, everyone removes their masks (assuming they were wearing them in the first place), and you realize, “crap, I’m almost 70. How much time is there?”
This clarifies things but in a brutal way. When someone comes at you with a knife, your options suddenly are VERY focused. When life comes at you with a knife…… Didn’t the Fates snip a man’s life thread and end it?
all the voices in my head 
I’m in my late 40s and I’m feeling some of this already. I’ve been thinking about how much time I have left with my kids for so long, I didn’t really consider other things. Time is strange, isn’t it?
I’ve heard said that in one’s early 40s, you stop thinking about how far you’ve come (the past), and start thinking about how much is left (the future).
Yes, I can see how that switch is happening. I also care FAR LESS what people think of me. I’m freer with compliments and, to some degree, complaints (if they are truly constructive).
Yeah, I’m close to not caring at all what anyone thinks. (I still wear clothes outside though! Ha!)