• Home
  • About
  • Our Authors
  • Children’s Books
    • Nonfiction
    • Fiction
  • Fiction
    • Boxsets
    • Short Stories
    • Anthologies and Collections
    • By Genre
      • Fantasy
      • Historical Fiction
      • Literary Fiction
      • Mystery
      • Romance
        • Contemporary Romance
        • Historical Romance
        • Paranormal Romance
        • Romantic Suspense
        • SF Romance
        • Western Romance
      • Science Fiction
      • Suspense / Thriller
      • Women’s Fiction
      • Young Adult
  • Nonfiction
    • Author Guides
    • Healthy Living
    • Memoir
  • Videos
    • Book Trailers
    • Author Interviews
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

Life Taxes
by Anna Brentwood

April 12, 2022

older woman balancing ona tightrope with a potentially long fall between opposite ends of safety

Ever run across memes or viral videos of those simple and positive affirmations?

“Create positivity”

“Live each day to the fullest”

“Practice gratitude”

“Embrace change”

Easier said than done, right? Who, in this peri-covid world, could deny that life has not become infinitely more challenging? No matter how devil-may-care you might be, flexible, organized, successful, how you arrange, plot and plan, how young or smart you are, no matter how much you think you are in control, you are not.

Yoga, hiking, spin classes and fortified vitamins (I’m talking to you 1,000,000 mg of vitamin D and platinum mega-pack 6000 daily), science and medicine might help us look, move and feel better on the outside, work longer, smarter and live longer lives, but whether you love technology or hate it, the truth is, the world as you knew it, the stable datums you grew up with, that our parents and grandparents were raised with, that we raised our kids with, no longer are. And, we are taxed, both literally and figuratively.

Forty might be the new thirty; fifty the new forty; sixty the new fifty and so on; but let me tell you this, it was much more fun growing up in the sixties than being in my sixties.

I don’t care what my eighty-year-old ex-hippie aunt and sixty-five-year-old cousin with thick spectacles, who goes to bed by eight thirty pm, mean when they say they don’t think of themselves as old. When your activities are limited by your body grumbling louder than Keith Moon of THE WHO drumming, and more years of life are behind you than in front of you, you ARE old. Being old in a time when the whole world is changing and not always for the better (bitcoin and what the heck are NFT’s), no matter how many down-dogs you do, or plant-based foods you eat, life is taxing. Not all sparkles and rainbows (though my nine-year-old granddaughter might disagree).

Not to be a total Debbie Downer. There are fantastic things about getting older too—being alive, senior discounts or as our local market says, ‘wisdom discounts’, and the wisdom and pride that comes with the lives, careers and relationships we have built.

Most of us strive to be more and better and are receptive to certain change.

Some have great gifts and all have some potential for greatness.

Many are advanced in their thinking and knowledge of spirit.

Most need to believe in something greater than themselves to thrive.

When we are young, we think we have forever and act accordingly.

Only through illness, hardship, or age do we realize how little control we actually do have and how short a lifespan can be.

Loss, struggle and change challenge all of us throughout our lives.

Hard lessons all—.

By now, many of us have learned physical bodies hurt as they age.

That loss is cumulative.

That we can process it but it never goes away.

That everything valued can be taken.

Everyone loved can be lost.

Everything achieved, no matter how heralded can be forgotten.

Individual lives and achievements can become a side note in a distant, distorted story and we get old too soon and wise too late.

All that said, I assume we each have acquired enough wisdom to know we have to take the bitter with the sweet in life. While I believe we are here as spiritual beings to learn, the most taxing things in life for me are the things that I cannot control like constant change and the way time speeds up the older we get.

I take comfort in the special people and animals I do have in my life, my work and my writing, which helps me process all my experiences and thoughts. I encourage everyone to find something they love to do and to do it as much as possible.

Keeping busy helps and so does remembering…

Raven hop, skip, fly awayThere is always, ALWAYS something to be thankful for.

Whatever you are doing, do it with the confidence of a four-year-old in a batman t-shirt.

Be like a raven.

Collect shiny things, hop happily down the street, and for no apparent reason, scream loudly when you see your friends.

And look for the beauty in all things.

Writer Franz Kafka believed anyone who saw the beauty would never grow old.

Who knows, I don’t quite believe that, but maybe he’s right?


Anna Brentwood, AuthorAnna Brentwood writes historical fiction. She is inspired to write about interesting characters whose lives take them on journeys we can all enjoy and perhaps learn something along the way. This former suburban Philly and California wife, mother, doting nany of three lives in one of Oregon’s wild, enchanted forests in a log home that includes a sassy collection of Flapper memorabilia, her ex-Navy Seal hubby, a menagerie of creatures that once included wolves, coyotes and a hawk. Currently they harbor two very pampered French bulldogs, one ornery parrot and outside a variety of birds, squirrels and chipmunks.

facebookShare on Facebook
TwitterTweet
FollowFollow us
PinterestSave

Blog Archives

view on lake with rainbow near the pine forest on mountain background at sunset

The Role of Religion or Spirituality in Stories

  August 9, 2022
Pink lotus blossom floating on water with a blue cloudy, hazy background

Spirituality in My Stories

  August 4, 2022
Double exposure portrait of a serene woman combined with a photograph of a traveller standing in a doorway of a temple in southeast asia

Belief in Something Beyond One’s Self is Grounding

  August 2, 2022
Group of diverse people holding letter that spell out FAMILY

The Importance of Good Foster Parents

  July 28, 2022
A picture of Mary, as a young woman, with her aunt and uncle

Celebrating Other Types of Parents

  July 26, 2022
Family in silhouette standing ina field facing a sky of purple, yellow, aqua and blue

Not All Families are Made the Same by Paty Jager

  July 21, 2022
silhouettes of a variety of happy, playful adults and children against a green toned park-like background

It Takes A Village

  July 19, 2022
Silhouette of a woman standing up on a motorcycle in the sunset with her arms back.

3 Ways YOU Can Be As Independent as a Biker Babe

  July 14, 2022
Illustration of men and women riding books rodeo style

The Independent Writer

  July 12, 2022
Fay King observes in the 1920s that women now read newspapers, the whole thing

The Importance of Independence

  July 7, 2022
woman jumping above a green meadow, against a blue sky with a multi-colored long scarf trailing behind her

Freedom and Independence to Follow My Dreams

  July 5, 2022
Silhouette of father and daughter holding hands in a field facing a bright orange sunset

My Father Taught Me Purpose

  June 28, 2022
Daughter sitting on sofa, covering her face with hands, turning away from father.

Father-Daughter Relationships Are Not Always Easy

  June 23, 2022
Two hands painted in pride flag colors forming a heart with thumb and index finger at the center

Embracing My Rainbow World

  June 16, 2022
Concept picture of a married gay man with a cut out of the man in the middle, sitting on a park bench with wife with a hand on his leg and son turned away looking out to the park behind

A Timeless Tale

  June 14, 2022
gender symbols interlocked with a variety of colors

Many People No Longer Think of Sexuality or Gender as Binary

  June 9, 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021