This is my post for #freewriters 2583 prompt a new decade hosted by @mariannewest.
In a year and a half, I would have 7 decades to look back on and wonder what a new decade will bring. Will I have my hand fixed so I can do the things I love to do? Or will there be some other ailment stopping me? My wish is to see 10 decades and still be healthy enough to enjoy life.
This is what I think when I look back on each decade of my life.
The first decade was my best, for most of it my parents were together. We had the inlet and the ocean to swim in and a great backyard that even had a zipline.
We had a swingset but my sister jumped from the top of the slide and cut her head on the cement around one of the poles in the ground after that Dad had it dug up and hauled to the middle of Lake Henry. I had a dog, but when she died, Dad never got another one. I lost a brother.
The second decade was terrible for a 15 year old, we had to leave our home and move from Florida to Missouri.
I bought a horse which helped. Made some good friends and lost friends. Three years before the end of this decade I got married and had a baby. I moved from Missouri to California and had another baby. Next, I moved from California to North Carolina and back to Missouri. I left my husband.
I met someone and had another baby, the day he was born, I lost a brother.
From Missouri, I came back to Florida where I married the last babies father and had another baby, and divorced him.
And I met and married the man I am still married to. I lost a brother.
In my third decade I started running my own boat, I had been fishing with my husband. He is helping me clear my catch from the net, I had 4 thousand pounds of roe mullet. These were my run-ragged years, kids in sports and having to run them to practice and games , plus fishing have to cook dinner, was a lot on me but I felt it was important for them.
The Fourth decade, Florida passed the Ban on nets, and I hurt my back from pulling nets by hand offshore and a huge hammerhead got tangled in the end of the net. It took a long time leaning over the edge of the boat but we got it out and it swam off. I still hurt from that day, I ripped 3 discs from the inside to the outside.
Now we had to learn new ways to stay in fishing, It was cast netting and rod and reel. we have managed to keep the bills paid.
The kids were all out of the house, and it felt empty. We paid our house off. That was a happy day.
My fifth decade was awful, double hurricanes destroyed our home and the fish houses, the fish houses did not have insurance and had to sell their land because they could not rebuild. The river died and now it is changed, with no seagrass for fish to hide. The last fish house sold, no more on the river.
We fought with our insurance company and had to hire a public adjuster who got us enough
to rebuild our home. The County made us sell our home to them
and we bought where we now live and started a plant nursery, we used to have yard and plant sales but it got to be too much because we could not have them at home. Now we only grow areca palms and what we make helps pay the bills.
My sixth decade is not over but it has been one health issue after another.
This was the start of a cataract in my good eye, it got so bad that I could not make out someone's face who was next to me, the day they fixed it was like a miracle, I could see and see the leaves on the trees.
They still do not know why when my head is turned to the right and in one position I go numb on my left side and fall. Now the cartridge is gone from the bones on top of my hand. I lost my last brother.
This is what I wish for a new decade?
I wish my children to have happy stable lives. This would make me very happy.
I would like to feel as if I was 20.
No more pain and I can use my right hand.
I find out why I fall and they fix it.
And the big wish is I can go back fishing.
photos are mine