There's a lot of time ahead. I hope, sort of. But only if it's good.

I'm starting to see the expanse of time left in my life before me. My eyes get hot and the tears spill over in a bout of self pity when I think about the hours, days, weeks, months, and years ahead of me. I don't know what's going to fill them and how I'll spend them. The work that I do is work that I do, but I have this life that is now open and I'm seeing how empty it is because it was filled with motherhood and having someone in my life as my real "work." Now that this part of my life is over, I have these rounds of tears because of this fear of being where I am now 10, 15, 20, or 40 years from now. I listen to myself as I chat to the dogs or narrate my next moves in the house or activities. The radio provides some company until the stupid banter becomes too much. The cat meows to be fed for the 50 billionth time, but she's on a diet, so I'll ignore her for an hour.

I'm cleaning and organizing on a level I find soothing. I'm still not eat-off-the-floor tidy, but I am making headway on some of my areas of difficulty. The laundry basket of socks still needs to be sorted, but that's not a job I want to tackle. I have a small box of cables and chargers I'm going to go through and then the other baskets full of old bills I need to sort and discard. The kitchen is in the middle of being cleaned with my photography gear being sorted and stowed away.

I need to make some memories that don't include my spice drawer. I need to make out with a man somewhere and feel excited over something other than an eight-part British crime show. I need a reason to get a real pedicure and not a half-assed home version where my heels are still hard enough to withstand a LEGO impact. So many things to do and all the time in the world to do it in.

The question is and always has been, what to do first? The possibilities are endless, but like with anything in life, focus is paramount. Frickety frick, that's the way life goes.