Time; for me, it’s time. I’m turning 80 this year, and my energy levels are unreliable. I don’t fight that any more (impossible to win). I don’t make commitments and appointments with the headlong abandon that I did when I was younger. The mad crush of doing all that needed doing while my husband was declining into Alzheimer’s and death is over now. I can just flow with time, doing what comes to hand or putting it off, if I want to. I can sit on the front steps for as long as I want, petting the cat that isn’t mine but that comes running down the street yelling for me whenever I come out of my front door. I can nap when I feel tired, on my side of the bed — Stevie’s side is still his, although he died almost a year and a half ago in a “memory care” unit across the river, close enough to visit easily (but he’s not there any more).

I can channel surf, read, mooch around following news stories and odd items on the internet, wear my comfortable old clothes, listen to all kinds of music, go eat a hamburger or delicious thin French crepes at the hoity-toity place two blocks away, talk on the phone with my sister for hours (lots of laughing!), drive down to the coffee shop run by a bunch of youngsters (in their twenties, mostly) and read the Times over an excellent espresso that they pull for me as soon as they see me, because I’ve been a “regular” for a year now . . . when it’s quiet there, I’ll read them bits of the news while they’re washing dishes, or listen to them talk about their world-shaking social grudges and delights. Maybe chat with one of my step-kids (both middle aged now) on the phone, do some stretching, some meditation with the land line unplugged and the cell turned off.

Or I can have a day like today, letting sadness roll over me, napping and waking, feeling lonely and letting that feeling in, drinking the whole cupful without anyone trying to “comfort” me except the indoor cat, who sleeps next to me, snoring minuscule snores (he’s old, too). That sadness is mine; I own it. Sometimes, it owns me. It’s good. What I miss was good. Missing it is good. What comes next, comes next: no rush. I’ll find out when it comes.

Slowness, taking all the time I need for whatever I’m doing or feeling — that’s a luxury unlike any other. Where I’m headed, there’s no rush to get there, and I don’t really care one way or the other how long (or how short) a time it takes.