Honestly, no. And I don’t believe in “soulmates” either. (I don’t think there’s just one person for each us.)
We have free will. And choices. And circumstances. And plain old luck – good and bad.
I guess I’m not a romantic. I’m more of a pragmatic pragmatist.
I’m no longer working a paid job. I had a career that I loved for decades, but that ended in late November.
Related post: Work update 4
Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.
There’s a phase of life that ends before true empty-nesterhood begins. It’s the “under one roof” phase.
As a young mother, it’s hard to get to sleep at night until all your kids are home in their beds. You want the whole family under one roof – safe. This gets more challenging as your children grow up. They’re out with friends and it gets late. They say they’re on the way, but what if something happens? Sleepovers, camp and other things sometimes require you to go to sleep with your kids NOT under your roof, but in those cases, I always made sure the ringer on both the landline and my cell phone were turned on high. If someone called, I wanted to hear it.
The “under one roof” phase inevitably ends and you just have to accept it. It’s very hard at first. What if they’re not safe? What if there’s an accident? Eventually, with practice, you can get to sleep having no idea where your offspring are.
As Hillary Clinton once said, “having a child is like deciding to let your heart forever walk around outside your body.” Letting go of the “under one roof” phase is just another step in the process.
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?
I think this may be a GenX thing: a question like today’s prompt automatically makes you think of the movie “Freaky Friday” that came out in 1977 with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris.
It’s about a girl and her mother who wake-up in each other’s bodies on Friday the 13th and have to live life as the other one for the day. (It was remade in 2003 with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis.)
There’s something about the mother-daughter relationship that makes the premise of these films irresistible (to girls anyway). If only she got me.
When you’re young, nobody can bug you quite like your mother. It’s a special skill! But I assure you, nobody—and I mean nobody—is ever going to love you like she does.
At 58, I am very lucky to still have my mother (and father) with me on earth. I am just wrapping-up a nice visit with them in Florida.
Related post:
I married a hard worker.
Our first house was a somewhat dilapidated antique outside of Boston. It had a “city yard” – about a quarter acre of rutted dirt and weeds. My husband Mario transformed it into an adorable garden and play area, complete with extensive stonework, including a patio and stone wall.
I take credit for none of it. He lifted all those rocks and pavers himself. Italians are known for their wonderful stonework. I think he got that gene. He also got the Italian “green thumb” gene.
As for me, sometimes I paint my own fingernails.
Related post:
My biggest challenge in the next nine months is our national challenge: to try to make sure Donald Trump does not get re-elected President of the United States. If overturning Roe v Wade and staging a coup d’état was not enough to convince you that a second Trump term would be truly disastrous for both the United States and the world, then please get up to speed.
Free gift article from The Atlantic: The Danger Ahead
This is not a time to be shy about your political views or to sit on the sidelines and see what happens. It’s a Code Red, people. The simple act of handwriting postcards to likely voters in key districts has proven highly effective in the last two election cycles.
Over the next nine months I’ll be volunteering with Vote Foward and my local Indivisible group, along with a bunch of folks from my church.
Yes, Joe Biden is too old to be President. But the likely alternative, a second Trump term, would “instantly plunge the country into a constitutional crisis more terrible than anything seen since the Civil War.”
I don’t want to wake up on Wednesday, November 6th regretting that I didn’t do more.
Related posts:
What advice would you give to your teenage self?
Fight mom on letting you have your ears pierced at the mall. Her ancient doctor is going to make yours uneven. Also, one hole in each ear is plenty! (You’re going to regret those extra piercings.) You were right to avoid tattoos.
Even in ideal circumstances, air travel is “boring” at best. You arrive at the airport hours early to sit and wait to be herded onto a thin metal tube (uncomfortably close to scores of strangers—some with pets), only to wait even longer (as a strapped-in captive) to be launched into the sky for an undetermined length of time, during which you’ll definitely have to pee.
Throw in a snowstorm, a pandemic, turbulence, a baby, a maintenance delay, or God forbid – a connecting flight, and you’re really just asking for trouble. Heading to the airport soon. Wish me luck.
I’m going to interpret the word “drink” in this prompt to mean “cocktail,” because nobody wants to read about how much I like water or Diet Coke, and I’ve already posted about my love of coffee and white wine.
When it comes to mixed drinks, I’m a vodka person. During the pandemic lockdown, I perfected my Cosmopolitan (Cosmo) recipe. Here it is:
1.5 oz Absolut Citron Vodka
1 oz Cointreau
1.5 oz unsweetened cranberry juice
Fresh squeezed juice of half a lime
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. After shaking, pour into chilled martini glass with lime wedge.
It’s not crazy strong, which I like. It’s especially good in summer. I keep a martini glass and a bottle of vodka in my freezer at all times.
Related posts:
I love my family and enjoy being with them. And friends are so important too. I try to be a good friend.
But this question is making me think of people writ large. Why do I gravitate to some more than others?
There’s a group of about 100 people I see on a weekly basis (my fellow UU churchgoers), about 20 of whom I see twice a week (the choir members), and I do like being around some more than others. My favorites are the people who are engaging (they talk but also listen); smart but relatable (they go beyond small talk, but don’t lecture); funny but self-aware (they’ll make you laugh, but aren’t trying to be stand-up comics); and they smell good. The last one seems shallow, but honestly, some people smell better than others and I prefer being around the good smellers. Aging seems to contribute to some so-so smelling people, but we’ve got plenty of good smelling seniors, so that’s not a great excuse. Scent matters.
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