Three-score-ten minus four...

Sitting and pondering.  Life is so short when you look back. With my three score and ten coming up in four years the time to look forward is gone and there is only looking backward at a life flown so fast.  When I was young it was not a contemplation that came up often.   The future was ahead in endless years.  I could do whatever I wished.  But time has a way of entangling the feet causing one to fall directly into the wall that separates here from there.  It approaches making itself known by those around you who have disappeared and those who are slowing to avoid the head on collision.
Taking stock, I wonder of what significance was this life?  Whom have I helped?  Whom have I ignored/?  Did I feed the hungry?  Did I provide water to the thirsty?  Or did I simply allow the years to spill through my fingers like sand without providing anyone with relief?
Are there accomplishments?  I worked.  I earned a living.  I allowed my son to raise himself.  I contributed as much as I could to my daughter's journey into adulthood.  Did my time at my job offer any improvement to the  hospital or profession?  I can think of nothing.  I fought being in my profession the entire time.  I never gave myself to it.  All I can say about it is it provided a good living for me and mine.  But I never allowed it in.  There was always a wall between that and me.  It wasn't me and I wasn't it.  There are some who are quite happy to allow themselves to be their profession.  I wasn't one of them.
The Air Force was my first step into the world.  My only comment for four years was "Who do I have to kill to get out of this mess?"  I never gave into it either.  It was a rite of passage that everyone my age, at that time, had to pass through.  It had to be borne in order to get on with one's life.
The next rite of passage was marriage.  I never gave into that either.  As I look back I see that I never properly engaged my life with any of the life affirming activities I had to go through as "rites."
So that's why I ponder, now, with four years left in my three-score-ten.  There is tomorrow, the good Lord willing.  Perhaps it will become evident then.
 I'm adrift.  The ocean is vast.  My vessel is small, insignificant, and quite vulnerable.