In Ten Years

April 13, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Daily writing prompt

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Where do I see myself in ten years? Alive. I hope.

My mother died at the age I will be in ten years, as did her mother, which makes me wonder if that’s an age written in my genes. My father’s family was long-lived, so that might be a mitigating factor, but I take after my mother more than I do him, so we’ll see. Of course, life might have other plans for me, so that ten years might not be a given. Still, I have what I always have . . . today.

Oddly, we don’t seem to be able to project the view of ourselves into an aged, weakened state, so the way I truly see myself in ten years is mostly the way I am today: knees that don’t always cooperate as well as they did when I was younger, foods that don’t always agree with me, but for the most part, my body works well. My mind, too, works well (at least as well as anyone can judge their own mental workings).

I see myself still living alone, still working in my garden, still grateful for my house, and still grateful for my life.

I can only hope that I really will be as I see that self. I’m to the age where the body doesn’t recuperate as well as it once did, and so minor ills will tend to add up to an eventual fragility, but I can’t “see” that. I suppose it’s a good thing we can’t even imagine what we will feel like and what we will be like when we are very old — it would make life feel . . . frantic, maybe, as we try to fit in everything we want to do before that decline. Or perhaps it would make life feel defeating as we try to overcome thoughts of our end.

So, unless there’s a blog prompt asking me where I see myself in ten years, the overriding factor is that I can’t see myself that far in the future. I don’t even bother to try.

I’m just glad I can see myself here today.