I have perhaps twenty more years of life left in me. Maybe less. Maybe a lot less.

The years have been kind. The years have been brutal. I have experienced great joy as well as great sorrow. Through it all, I hoped for a tranquil journey. Through it all, tranquility has been elusive. Fleeting glimpses here and there. Moments of contentment were rare.

But I had hope. I believed in someday. If I were organized enough, if I worked hard, if I was a good person, if… if…if… all would be well. Life would be like boating on a placid sea with a colorful sail rippling in the gentle breeze of deep summer.

I handled the chaos. The stress. The upheaval.

I was often overwhelmed, but I continued moving forward. I tended to my child, who was and is the love of my life. I tended to my house. I tended the garden that brought me glimpses of tranquility when hummingbirds fed at the trumpet vine. I tended to my job.  I was not so good at tending to my spouse. We divorced just shy of our twentieth anniversary.

These past twenty years as a divorced, perimenopausal woman have been chaotic and heartbreaking. I often quip that my New Year’s resolution is to be bored. I have been accused of being dramatic, but the drama invaded my life uninvited. I did not conjure it, nor did I encourage the spectacle.

When sent home to quarantine during the pandemic, I hoped for three weeks. Three weeks to hole up in my house and find my equanimity. Three weeks to figure out my life. Three weeks to decompress, regroup, and emerge again fortified and ready to take on the world.

The previous year had been eventful — much of it in not a good way. Still, there were things to celebrate. I turned 60, and my only child had a small destination wedding in Spain. I was the only person on my son’s guest list able to attend. His father had health issues, his grandmothers were too old to make the trip, and so on.

With some trepidation, I planned my first solo international vacation. I raided my 401K and gifted myself an epic two weeks on the island of Ibiza. It was my 60th birthday present to me. The expense was considerable. It was also my only child’s wedding. It was an escape from the stressfest that was my life, and I pulled out all the stops. Sixty! Who would have believed such a state was possible?

After a puddle jumper from my small West Virginia airport, I took off from the Charlotte International Airport to Madrid, Spain. So far, so good. In the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport, where I had a nine-hour layover, I was soon overwhelmed. The airport was massive. Lots of people. Lots of confusion. I was tired and my feet hurt. There was a cacophony of languages at decibels harmful to the human ear. Hordes of people. Crying babies. Rapid-fire speech I couldn’t understand.

My high school Spanish completely failed me.

I remembered something I’d read in a travel guide and began looking for my airline’s VIP lounge. I found it, and entered a blissfully quiet, serene space with overstuffed chairs, footstools, electrical outlets, and complimentary food and beverages. (For 34 euros, you too can be a VIP!).

I was able to regroup even if I couldn’t find coffee in a cup larger than a thimble. I kept checking the monitor for my gate assignment. Nothing. I called the airline. It hadn’t been assigned yet.

I had no idea what terminal to be in, much less which concourse. I didn’t even know which terminal I was in at that moment. I left the tranquil lounge for teeming crowds, overtired children (and adults), and nonstop PA announcements I couldn’t understand even when they were in English.

I wanted to cry.

I fought my way through using my carry-on bag as a shield. “Perdóname por favor;”

I checked monitor after monitor. I said “Ingles por favor?” to every person in a uniform I could find. They shake their heads no. Finally, one woman nodded yes. She thought Terminal 4 and a gate in either Concourse J or K.

I said ,“Gracias.”

She said, “My pleasure.”

I was thankful for small mercies.

I looked at the airport map on display in the center of the terminal. I can’t read maps. They make no sense to me. I’m baffled by the very concept. If you don’t know where you are and you don’t know the location of where you’re going, what good is a map?

I was getting increasingly anxious. I do not want to miss my flight. I do not want to spend one second longer in the Madrid airport than I must.

A monitor finally reveals my gate assignment. I’m in the right terminal, wrong concourse. I head for Gate K16. When I got there, I collapsed into the end seat of a row of empty seats. I’m the first one there. There aren’t even any airline employees at the gate yet. It is quieter in this part of the airport. I am grateful to see my flight number on the departure board.

Out of nowhere — off in the distance somewhere — someone was loudly and exuberantly whistling Camp Town Ladies.

A Stephen Foster tune in the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport. 

I laugh out loud with only the slightest hint of hysteria. It was all going to be okay.

Doodah indeed.

After 24 hours in airports or on planes, I board the small commuter flight to Ibiza. I arrived in late afternoon absolutely depleted. The resort sent a limo to pick me up, and we drove a fair distance. I peered out the window and answered my driver’s polite questions. I was thankful to be away from the chaos of international air travel and surrounded by the exquisite silence of a luxury car.

The island was teeming with people, and I was an intense observer.

It didn’t take me long to realize I was the oldest person on the entire island. By far.

Ibiza is the international party spot for the young and wealthy. It is the birthplace of electronic music. It is the hangout for billionaires and A-list celebrities.

As a menopausal woman on the cusp of her 60^th birthday, I didn’t fit the profile.

Three days later, after the wedding, I explored the island both on my own and with guides. I spent an enormous amount of money eating and drinking well, taking in the sights, and enjoying the bougainvillea shading my private balcony just off the sitting room of my suite.

I had a ball. I decided traveling alone was wonderful. I answered only to myself and did what I wanted when I wanted.

On one of the tours, we were presented with the opportunity to cliff jump. I had broken my foot earlier in the year and was just barely healed. My foot was already unhappy due to the five-inch heels I wore as Mother of the Groom. I shook my head no when our guide motioned me towards the cliff’s edge.

A funny thing happened while I was sitting on the rocks using a telephoto lens to capture my companions jumping into the deep blue sea.

I stood up and got in line to jump. And ignored my foot.

The young’uns high-fived me. I got closer and closer to the cliff’s edge. I didn’t allow myself to think. When it was my turn, I wanted to flee, but instead I took a deep breath, bent my knees, and leaped as high and as far out over the water as I could.

I did not look at the jagged rocks below.

I’m sure it was only seconds before I splashed deep into the intense blue of the Mediterranean, but time had stopped. I was fully present in the present. By the time I swam back up to the surface, I was suffused with euphoria. No fear, no distress, just a rapidly beating heart and joy in abundance. I swam to shore and sat by myself near the water’s edge completely blissed out watching the sunlight ripple across the surface of the water.

My foot was fine.

That evening, I sat on my balcony, drinking champagne and watching the young, the beautiful, and the famous trance-dancing in the pool while a DJ mixed hypnotic music under a starlit sky on a warm summer night.

I vowed to make more leaps in my life. To conquer fear. To experience euphoria and joy on a regular basis. To hell with seeking tranquility. I wanted a rapid beating heart and an ebullient spirit.

But just a few months later, COVID-19 dominated the news. The pandemic quarantine began a few months later. What I had hoped would be three weeks turned out to be months. And months.

During that time when I had hoped to get my life in order, my life fell apart.

Despite my care, despite my ever-present (and hated) mask, despite holing up in my house except for runs to the grocery store and the occasional trip to the office to get this or that file, I was infected with COVID.

Before the vaccine. Before there was even a protocol for treatment.

My doctor told me not to even bother going to the emergency room unless I developed problems breathing.

I had a reasonably mild case, but I never recovered. I developed Long COVID, also known as Post Covid Syndrome. Long COVID has a thousand different symptoms that affect people in different combinations. It is estimated that 20% to 30% of the folks who survived the initial infection developed Long COVID. Most of them recovered within a few months. Others ended up permanently disabled and bedridden. And everything in between.

I had been dead-dog tired for nearly half a decade. I slept no less than 15 hours a day. I was unable to walk from my assigned parking space to my office – a distance of less than a block. My doctor said I was mimicking Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

My health continued to deteriorate. I needed a cane. I needed a rollator. I needed an inhaler. I needed a cardiologist, a pulmonologist, a nephrologist, a neurologist and a psychiatrist.

I am enrolled in a study at Johns Hopkins.

It will be five years this coming October since I tested positive for the rogue virus.

I completely bottomed out.

And then…

I turned a corner two months ago.

After my doctor recommended I file for disability, after I considered (and rejected) early retirement, after I had lost my enthusiasm for life, and after I lost hope, I started feeling better. I slept less. I no longer needed the cane or the rollator. The cardiologist released me. My shrink says I’m coping well. Every day, I am stronger and less exhausted.

I think the nightmare is almost over. I can feel euphoria welling up.

But I’m 66 now. Long COVID left me with neurological damage. And kidney damage. My lungs are not good.

I’m in the last twenty years of my life. Maybe less. Maybe a lot less.

I believe the universe recycles.

I will get to do it all again.

I expect death to be like cliff jumping. Scary, yes, but leading to euphoria and joy when I break through the surface into a new life.

After five years of misery, I am transfixed with hope for the future in this life and in the next.

I will generate and embrace euphoria.

I will.

It’s all going to be okay.

It is.

Doodah. Doodah.