I’m Not Planning Ten Years Out

and neither should you.

Don’t call this a newsletter.
Call it a daily reminder that you’re not too late to begin again.

---

The luxury of time.
Time to read books.
Time to sit and bask in the warmth of a day with nothing urgent calling.
That’s what I used to think money would give me: not just things, but the luxury of time.

But lately… time feels different.

Because I’m turning 70 this year.
And the very idea of time has shifted in my bones.

I don’t have an endless supply of it anymore—not in the way we all pretend to when we’re younger.
Life expectancy is no longer a vague concept. It’s math.
And I’ll be honest: that makes me uncomfortable.

I sit in meetings with city leaders about revitalizing our downtown. And I hear phrases like “ten-year plan,” and “by 2035,” and I want to scream:

“Get ON with it! We don’t have that kind of time!”

I don’t want to die watching blueprints.
I want to see flowers blooming on the sidewalk.
I want to sit at the café we talked about building.
I want to see this vision come to life while I’m still fully in mine.

I know I’ll see some of it. But probably not all.
And that stirs something deep in me.

It makes me ask a question I don’t think I’ve ever said out loud:

Is it too late to reclaim a dream at this stage of life?

I don’t think so.
In fact, I think reclaiming our dreams in this season might be more powerful than it ever was before.

Because now we know what it’s like to live under the weight of expectations.
We’ve done what was right, responsible, required.
We’ve carried others. We’ve held it all together.

And now? Now we want to live.

I’ve got a hunger right now.
A nagging little pull inside me that says, get moving, girl.

I want to see beauty bloom in my lifetime.
I want to taste what I’ve been dreaming.
I don’t want to plan ten years out—I want to feel ten years deep right now.

And then I look at my neighbor Terry.

My neighbor Terry

She’s in her late 70s. Moved across the country a few years ago to start over near her son and daughter-in-law. She knew no one. Had no circle. No history here.

Now? She’s thriving.

A proud member of the garden club.
Sells Mary Kay like it’s a sacred mission.
Jets off to regional and national meetings with sparkle in her eyes and a carry-on full of lip gloss and possibility.

Terry is living.

She’s not waiting for the end.
She’s riding the wave while she still can.

And every time I see her, I remember—
this isn’t about age.
This is about aliveness.

No, I don’t think stepping into our dreams is futile.
I think it’s the very thing that returns us to joy.
To well-being.
To ourselves.

Not because we have decades to build an empire.
But because we have this day to feel more alive.
And then maybe the next. And maybe the next.

And maybe that’s the real luxury time gives us:
Not leisure. But presence.
Not a long timeline. But a deep now.

---

I don’t want to waste that.
And if you’re reading this, maybe you don’t either.

So let’s stop worrying about how long we have.
And start asking:

How true can I be in the time I’ve got left?

Because that, my love, is how we bloom—even at 70.
Just ask Terry.

---

✨ PS: The Dream Reclamation Blueprint drops tomorrow.
It’s a soul-guided roadmap—real steps, real prompts, real truth—based on the exact journey I took to move from survival to purpose.
If you’ve been quietly aching to reclaim your dream, this is your sign to stay close.

☕️ And if this note moved something in you, you can always buy me a coffee.
No pressure. Just love. It helps keep the porch light on.