Before us is a white tall and wide slate of nothing.  Waiting to be filled with colors and swirls and spots of doo dads and what knots.

Life is to be redrawn and re-plotted from a tree of learning and school of hard knocks.

If we could recreate our lives, ours would be a young romance with burgeoning adults that had all the answers and had done everything in an order that brought harmony and symphony.  Gone would be ugly choices replaced by proper decision that made sense for the future.  Gone would be one night mistakes producing heirs without hope of any inheritance, replaced by choosing wisely and saving oneself for the perfect match producing the proper progeny at the proper time.

If we could recreate our lives, ours would be one of parents that stayed married.  A family that loved and nurtured it’s young and protected the young from danger.  Gone would be the sexual abuse and replaced by a male role model that taught the young girls what being a man means and through example lead the way to proper selection of a mate.  Gone would be the fear of dying and replaced by a family value of living each day in its fullest form. We’d be embracing life and relations with zeal and jovial good wishes.

Sadly my life is being re-drawn and re-plotted when my eggs for progeny are not longer eggs but harden small nodes of what could have been. 

Sadly my life is being re-drawn and re-plotted when my skin is not quite so supple and my dark eyes are no longer as mysterious and alluring.

Sadly my life is being re-drawn and re-plotted when my body which used to carry me across the dance floor into a double spin can now only sway in time to my favorite song.

So I sit before the white tall and wide slate of nothing and think.  What purpose does it serve to re-draw the life at my age?  What joy can be had by now plotting something new?  Has not enough time gone by already that time, in its proverbial glass, is lacking in enough sand for a re-do?

I might say, Ha Ha Ha, the joke is really on me!  But don’t let me fool you; I do not give up easily.  I have fought long and hard for a re-do and even at my age I want to re-draw what is to be.

So white tall and wide slate I bring back into my life hope and joy by drawing blue sky and tulips.  I draw family gatherings that include all my children and their children.  I draw a grin upon my face and show myself looking upward to the heavens and with lips softly saying thank you.  I re-plot my husband’s career so that he is appreciated and takes every Friday off!

On to the white tall slate I paint a big house that has a library, because I love books and reading.  There is also room for my own books because there are more than two within me and I keep writing.  I draw horses and a barn.  I draw chickens and eggs.  With my brush is painted an obstacle course in which my brood of border collies is trained.  Wow this great!

Really the slate is never ending and the dreams I have are constant and every changing.  What I have learned is that we all have the power to produce the white tall slate and we all have the power to re-draw or re-plot our lives. 

We merely have to pick up the brush and dream.