Tag: empty nest

Percentages

To start with, January 2026 is 83% completed. How does that make you feel? How has the start of this year’s journey gone for you? For those of you affected by this winter storm over the weekend, I hope that you are 100% safe and warm. Interestingly, I read an article recently that suggested that Americans spend 90% of their time and days, indoors. Over the weekend, I went boating with my husband and so on Saturday, I spent at least 40% of my time outdoors, and it was wonderful. It was revitalizing. It was a great reminder that since I am as 100% part of nature as the trees, perhaps a few more percentage points of time outside each day would make an enormous difference in my vitality. It certainly couldn’t hurt anything.

Over the weekend, I was reading an interesting book about worry and anxiety by the Japanese writer, Shunmyo Masuno. In one chapter he repeated the idea that many of us have heard about the Japanese people’s philosophy on healthy eating. From early on, the Japanese people are taught to eat only until they are 80% full. The idea is that 80% is enough to satiate you, and once your body gets going into the digestion process, you will no longer feel hungry, and you will have not overeaten. Masuno suggests that the 80% is enough rule applies to all things in life, besides your meals. He says that no relationship, occupation or membership, etc. is going to fulfill you 100%. That’s damn near impossible. However, if roughly 80% of your values match in any relationship or situation that you are in, it is likely enough to satiate you. It is enough to bring satisfaction, and yet still leaves a little intrigue and interest and friction and curiosity about the 20% of things you perceive or handle differently than others.

The start of the year is usually a big time of reflection and new beginnings for many of us. The “80% is enough” rule is a good tool to use, to see where we need to put our focus on changes that we we want in our lives. Do we get 80% of our needs met in our most important relationships? Do we get 80% of what we want and need from our jobs and daily activities? Does where we live make us feel at least 80% satisfied? Do the organizations that we belong to and affiliate with, share at least 80% of our values? This is not to suggest that we need to settle, or to stop trying to improve. It just means that the areas that have glaringly lower percentages than 80% satisfaction in the pie chart of our individual lives – these are the areas where we should put our focus. If in each part our individual lives, we are hitting at least 80% satisfaction, it probably is enough. The rest is just to tweak a little.

“The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.” – Ronald Reagan

(The 80/20 principle is attributed to Richard Koch.)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Not Static

I saw a quote from Buzz Aldrin today that I will paraphrase as saying that nothing remains static. People, places and things either evolve or decline. There is exploration or there is expiration. This is such a good reminder at this time of life when many of us are retiring or considering what we will do when we retire from what we have spent the bulk of our adulthoods doing: growing in one particular career field or vocation, and raising our families. Retirement hopefully spells freedom to explore and to evolve even further, in this new, interesting, intriguing stage of our lives.

This is the challenge of anyone’s or anything’s lifetime, correct? It is our choice to evolve or else succumb to inevitable decline. It is our choice to continue to desire experiences and to explore and to be curious about what’s next, and to learn more about our own selves and how to grow. If we have stopped evolving and exploring, then what is the point? This we know: We all have a unique and inevitable expiration date. Still, until that date comes, we can continue to explore and evolve and grow and be curious and learn new things. Otherwise, we just sit on a dusty shelf, already in a state of decline, waiting for the end. Nothing is static. All things are in motion. All people, places and things are either evolving or declining. We can decide the direction of our momentum and the richness of our experiences, all of the way to the end of our lives.

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But, nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong” — N. R. Narayana Murthy

“All growth depends upon activity” — Calvin Coolidge 

“If you are not growing you are dying” — Unknown

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Funchy

I had to add the following video to the archives. This video just tickles me. I think I’ll be singing this song all day long. It’s these types of things that get me really excited about being a grandmother one day:

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DSI64cgjf77

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

What She Said

Yesterday, I happened upon an article written by a sex worker, who by all accounts that I read, is also an excellent writer. I was too cheap to spring for the subscription to read the whole article, (that I know would turn into a rabbit hole that I would never be able to get out of – I’m always amazed with how easy it is to sign up for subscriptions versus how extremely difficult it is to get out of them – kind of like corn mazes.), but interestingly, I was able to read all of the comments about the article. In essence, the writer was saying that most of her clients were men who were detached and demasculinized by their exhausted, strung out wives whose biggest concerns were about how their lives “appeared”, versus how their lives actually were, in reality.

Now of course, plenty of the commenters were upset with the idea that a “high and mighty” man would go to a sex worker versus trying to communicate and work things out, or even deciding to divorce their wives. The commenters felt that the survey sample was skewed towards dishonest, snively men. But even more commenters related to the idea that women have been sold a bill of goods that they can have it all: the amazing career, the perfect family, the beautifully curated home, the taught, fit body, the elegant and fashionable designer wardrobe, the greatest sex life with their handsome husband, who is also the love of their lives, international vacations, the girls’ weekends with close, amazing friends, a funded retirement and the perfectly trained dog. And they need to prove that they have the “all of the above life”, by posting it on at least three different social media feeds, regularly. And by most accounts, what this striving has really lead to is not actually “happily ever after” but instead, high-strung misery. The article apparently referred to many “bossgirls” sobbing in the bathroom in earshot of their confused, uncomfortable husbands and kids.

The article was discussing women and men, mostly in their mid-40s. I am grateful to be a good decade beyond this fraught time in life. Every decade of age, gives more wisdom and grace that compassionately reminds you that there is no one formula for “the perfect life.” Not only is there not a formula, there is no such thing as “the perfect life.” There is essentially just your one life and how you choose to live it. And your life is not a performance. Your “image” is based on the subjectiveness and the varied beliefs and experiences of anyone who is “imagining” you, and thus you have as many images as the people who know you. You have so many different “images” that you might as well be a mirror looking into a mirror. And none of this is in your control. And which of these “images” is real? Do you even know which image is real?

This is an excerpt from an “Ask Dear Polly” article by Heather Havrilesky which I read this morning, where Polly is answering a question from a writer who is feeling insecure and wondering if they were “too late to the game” and should just quit:

“. . . This is the beauty and the horror of being a writer — or trying to be anything, really: You can feel important or unimportant. No one cares. No one is watching. You can have fun or you can suffer. No one is grading you. No one is invested. You can proclaim yourself ahead of schedule, or you can spend your whole life telling yourself that you’re running behind. No one is there to measure. You can suspect that you’re insecure and outdated, long-winded and short-sighted, high-strung and lowbrow. Or you can conclude that you’re charismatic, a teensy bit talented, never boring, and reasonably worthy. You have choices. You are the decider. Because the truth is, no one else gives a flying f*ck.“

Polly later discusses a conversation she was having with a friend and fellow writer who was also lamenting whether she was any good at writing and maybe should just quit. Here is the conversation she had:

“I asked if she was enjoying her work on her play. “I love it,” she said without hesitation.

“Then you’re in the right place,” I told her.“Whether or not you publish a thing, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

Why is it so hard for us to figure out that it is the joy of doing anything which we like or even love to do, during the course of our days, that is the real meaning and purpose of living a fulfilling life? “You can have fun or you can suffer,” Heather states above, and this is the ultimate truth. How much of your life is authentic joy, and how much of it is just a performance, or an “I should” for an audience that doesn’t even really exist? What makes you happier, doing what you love and getting yourself lost in it, or getting an occasional compliment, applause or merit badge for something that doesn’t even resonate with the deepest part of you? Does your life make you feel like you want to get lost in it, or are you always trying to always escape from it, in some form or another? Are you savoring, or are you chasing? If you are being true to yourself, you don’t need to chase anything.

If you are living your life in authenticity, ” . . . it doesn’t get any better than this.” What feeds your soul is your purpose to pursue. Amazing creators enjoy applause, approval and material forms of appreciation, just like everyone else, of course, but they truly don’t do what they do, for the applause or the approval or the appreciation. Amazing creators (We are all creators. Our individual lives are our major creations.) do their creating because it is their joy to create. And the people applauding them, are actually resonating with, and are being inspired by the joy that is emanating from a creator bringing something from their deepest, most authentic selves, into creation to share with our world. You’re not sobbing in the bathroom, nor are you needing to prove to the world that you are living a fulfilling a life, if you are truly living in the spirit of your own creative authenticity.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Unexpected

Yesterday when driving to my annual dermatology appointment, I witnessed the results of a terrible accident. Both cars were demolished. From news reports, the victims of the accident had to be extracted from their cars. So, on my way home, as cars were whizzing all around me, and cars were weaving in and out of lanes, I was admittedly wearing my sad, cynical, snarky (and defensive driver) hat.

I live in Florida, home of the infamous “Florida Man.” I believe that I’ve seen almost every bumper sticker and back window cling ever manufactured. Most of these stickers that I’ve seen are divisive. Most of them are political. Some of these car stickers that I’ve seen are outrageous, some are admittedly funny, and some are downright stupid. So in my “grumbly about Florida drivers” mood yesterday, out of the corner of my eye, I see (and hear) a bright, bright yellow Dodge Dart muscle car coming up behind me, and then moving up ahead of me. And then I noticed bright yellow letters, matching the car, on the back window.

“Oh, this ought to be good,” I snarkily thought to myself, with a snort for emphasis. I was happy when we both hit a stoplight so that I could get a better look, to prove my point (to my imaginary audience, I guess).

Here is what I saw:

“I hope something good happens to you today.”

Oh, wow, this was not what I expected. It gave me pause. I thought about this occurrence a lot yesterday. Obviously, I’m still thinking about it this morning. I got some lessons and self awareness out of this experience. Maybe I’m too quick to judge. Maybe I have more negativity bias than I like to pretend. Maybe if we all wished good things for everyone whom we come in contact with on a daily basis, the world would feel a little bit better and brighter and more hopeful, kind of like the happy, optimistic zip of a bright yellow muscle car.

Today, when my husband kissed me goodbye before he headed to work, I told him, “I hope something good happens to you today.” He smiled and wished for me the same.

Readers, “I hope something good happens to you today.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

I’ve had a weird day. I woke up with expectations of it going in a way that it didn’t. And I’m not even sure if that’s good or bad. For you loyal readers, Sundays were always devoted to poetry here at the blog. I have had a heavy and yet also an interesting, uplifting day, thus, I wrote this poem:

“Blessings”

The whole “blessed” thing bugs me.

Shouldn’t we all be “blessed”?

We are all creations of Creation.

Aren’t we all blessed for being thought into existence?

Why wear “blessed” as a banner?

As if some of us are and some of us aren’t,

“Blessed”

for arbitrary reasons.

Count your blessings.

Don’t count others’ blessings.

Their blessings may also be their curses.

Your curses may also be your blessings.

Today one of my curses helped me to be a blessing to another.

And for that awful curse, I am blessed.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ I had a bit of “sticker shock” when I was on the scale at my doctor’s office the other day. I simply couldn’t believe the number. Blaming the extra pounds on a semi-heavy sweater and my bra, I had to come home and verify my own assurance that the doctor’s office scale just had to be broken. It wasn’t. The holiday treats have all landed in the garbage can.

+ My one son is the king of purchasing really good, thoughtful, practical gifts. (there are times I’ve had to remind him that his fiancee would probably like impractical gifts, too – wink, wink) Having witnessed me and his father struggle many times with our spoons, trying to get the powder lumps out of our daily green smoothie (and then, often not successful, thus choking, unattractively, for what feels like an eternity, on said lumps), he got me a wonderful Sur-la-table whisk/frother for Christmas. (which my husband promptly used before I even tried MY gift – the early bird catches the worm, it seems) Anyway, it is a wonderful gift and it has made a huge difference already, as long as I remember to put the whisk into the drink before turning it on. At least now though, I won’t die from choking on my health drink. (However, I should have gotten a big, fresh sponge for Christmas, too, to clean up my messes until I learn to get it right.)

+ I’m trying to start the year out right and get “seriously more serious” about decluttering. The problem for me is, that I actually like all of my stuff (and at age 55 and being an earnest and regular shopper, I’ve accumulated A LOT of stuff). The whole world-famous Marie Kondo question, “Does this (insert: 18 Vera Bradley tablets, citrine cluster, dog shaped candle, owl bell, gnome figurines, various jars of eye cream, 116 perfume bottles, 52 pairs of sunglasses, 5 pairs of Kelly green and orange shoes, one of thousands of pairs of earrings, 50 collected bird feathers, etc. etc.) spark joy?” Yes. Yes, they all do. They all spark joy. That’s why I bought them in the first place. So, I guess where to store all of my joy is the question. Or perhaps I need to start ranking things by different levels of joy and letting the lower levels of my joy go to Goodwill to spark joy in someone else. Joy is best when it is given away.

+ I was speaking to one of my future daughter-in-laws over the holidays, talking about my dress for her wedding. Her enthusiastic mother, already has purchased her dress and the wedding is in September. My future DIL mentioned that she wants the colors of her wedding to be muted (the bridesmaids are wearing a silvery-grey). She mentioned that her mother’s dress is navy blue. Now, I don’t have my dress for the wedding yet. (See the first point I made today, as to a main reason why I don’t have my dress) And I actually look much better in bright, vibrant colors. So, I was scanning my mind for what “muted color” I could wear and not copy her mother’s navy blue. “Oh, I could wear off-white!” I said with a big smile on my face. Ooops! What?!? Where did I come up with the idea that off-white would be a good color to wear to my son’s wedding? My future DIL’s face said it all. She was looking me like I had two heads. I realized my mistake immediately, laughed and now luckily, it’s just become one of our many family jokes to be repeated ad nauseum, for years and years to come. And of course, I will not be wearing off-white.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am trying to start this year with a good sense of humor. And this is a time in the world, when a good sense of humor is vital. When we can laugh at ourselves, we never cease laughing – there is plenty of material to play with when observing our own absurdities.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

NYE

Happy New Year’s Eve! I had to get my last words in for the year of 2025. I honestly really liked a lot of my 2025 experience and I almost feel guilty writing it. It seems that it is almost a universal thing to say and to read and to hear that “It’s just wonderful that this ‘god-awful’ year is over.” And yes, the political drama has been exhausting. And everyday life seems to have grown exponentially expensive. And it has been so painful to witness the wars and atrocities that are taking place all over the world. And it is frustrating that we can never seem to get on the same page to focus on solving the world’s biggest problems. And many, many people have suffered terrible personal tragedies and grief in their own private lives in 2025. AND ALSO – people got married in 2025, people had babies in 2025, people found the loves of their lives in 2025, people healed from dire sicknesses in 2025, and if you need more positive examples, there are outlets to read about everyday kindnesses, every single day. And I clicked on one of those “stories about kindness” just now. The article talks about a city in Texas that is running a “Grandma Stand”, where three grandmas rotate being at the stand, in order to offer free comfort, love, hugs and advice for anyone who comes up to the stand asking for it. One Grandma, whose daughter volunteered her for the job, had this to say, “Grandmas are nonjudgmental and loving people. Sometimes it’s nice to talk to someone who’s basically a stranger, but you still feel a connection with.”

Maybe we all could work on being better “Grandmas” in the coming year. No matter our ages, our sexes, our family situations, we could all work to be better examples of kindness, lovingness, compassion, and connection. If we woke up every day with the idea that our job and our purpose was to work the “Grandma stand”, wouldn’t the world be a better place? We all have an “inner grandma” and she’s just itching to come out and to offer up some sweet love to a world that we all seem to universally agree, needs more of it. If we honestly believe that 2025 was the worst (or perhaps feel a little “survivor’s guilt” because we don’t think that 2025 was all that bad, at least in our own personal lives), what would our inner grandma say to do? I imagine her advice would be something along the lines of doing and being more of the simple things we often universally associate with good grandmas – softness, kindness, wisdom, sharing treats, support, cheer, reassurance, warmth, unconditional love. Our inner grandma is essentially love wrapped up in the most comforting of packages. We just have to remember to give that package away. Our inner grandmas are strong in the softest of ways, wise in the most reassuring of ways, and beautiful in the simplest of ways.

I wish for you in 2026, to become more intimately involved with your own inner grandma and to accept her love, and her comfort, and her reassurance, and her wisdom. I wish for you in 2026, to share more of your own inner grandma with everyone whom you come in contact with, every single day, so that when we roll around to this time again next year, the universal judgment of the year we just experienced together won’t seem so harsh. It won’t seem so negative and hopeless and full of division. It won’t seem so desolate, frustrated, and hardened. I hope that at this time next year we will be reflecting on our past year, with our inner grandma’s lens and heart. And we will be focused on all of the everyday experiences we had throughout the year, and feel nothing but overwhelmingly grateful for this experiment of living “a one and only lifetime.” Maybe, just maybe, on this last night of 2025, we could connect with our inner grandma, and look at this past year through her lens and her heart and feel just a little bit better, as we enter a whole new year of our precious lives.

“If nothing is going well, call your grandmother.” — Italian Proverb

“Grandmothers are short on criticism and long on love.” — Janet Lanese 

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

4 Questions

“Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.” – Pearl Buck

I hope that everyone enjoyed and is continuing to enjoy a wonderful holiday season. Today is a little “respite” into what has become to be, what I call the Venn diagram of Christmas. We have four adult kids, with their own careers, and who all have serious significant others with careers and their own extended families, so our Christmas is a lot of comings and goings. We still plan to have our biggest celebration, when all of our crew can finally be at the same place at the same time, in a few days. This has been a transition that started happening a few years back and it is still evolving as our youngest is graduating from college in the spring. I’ve learned to embrace it, and to surrender to the gifts and to the surprises and to the metamorphoses that each new Christmas season brings. I have learned to savor the small joys that have a way of turning into “the big happiness.” Our daughter said that someone asked her recently how her parents were doing with all of the big transformations which we have been experiencing in our lives lately and my husband and I looked at each other and smiled. I think we are doing just fine. Change is the only constant and so you have a choice to embrace it and look for the growth and the blessings, or to fruitlessly try to fight it, and end up despondent and frustrated by your own futile resistance. I choose to focus on the joys.

Karen Nimmo wrote an excellent article about the four best questions to answer, in order to reflect on your past year, in order to help you do any course corrections for the new year. My birthday happens to fall in December, so I find this time of year to be particularly reflective for me, and I really enjoyed the structure of her questions. My husband and I answered these questions with two of our kids the other night, and it really gave us insight into what we are all feeling and doing. Here are the questions:

What did you do this year? (when you start listing everything that you did, I think you will be amazed!)

What delighted you? (perhaps bring more of this answer into the new year?)

How did you improve?

What demanded courage?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Big Game

Happy Holidays, my dear friends and readers. I have felt a crazy, needful urge to write all day. I am currently in a hotel lobby in Oregon, on a public computer. I live in Florida. I have just travelled, relatively impromptu, all of the way across the country, smack dab in the middle of the holiday season, because my husband, my true love, never, ever knows what he wants for Christmas. He never asks for anything. He gives us, his family, everything. But this year, he absolutely knew what he wanted for Christmas. My husband wanted to see our college alma mater football team (a team, which he, himself, played for) play in their first ever college play-offs. And so here we are, in rainy, but beautiful and lovely and honestly, gracious and accommodating Eugene, Oregon.

My husband and I met at James Madison University in the quietly gorgeous Shenandoah Valley in Harrisonburg, VA. I met my husband my first weekend at JMU. We just recently celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary in October of this year. Up until lately, James Madison University was relatively/vaguely known/unknown to anyone whom I mentioned that I graduated from there. It is one of those wholesome, best kept secrets in the valley, and for those of us who enjoy living under the radar, we have been happy as clams, to keep it that way. The regional people in the DC/Richmond/Maryland/eastern PA areas are, of course, familiar with JMU and all of its charms and advantages, but it is clearly not one of those “University of . . . . Name the State” whom everyone and their grandmother is familiar with. And that never bothered me. Never. Even when professors at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, whom I sold college textbooks to, would smugly proclaim that I would have gotten a much better education had I stayed home to go to school there, I would equally as smugly think in my mind, “Perhaps, but I would not have had the overall, all-together amazing, gentle, kind, prodding but safe cocooning experience into the final phase of my turning into an adult. And even more importantly, I would never have met the love of my life.” James Madison University has something special that’s hard to put into words. It is a protective cottagey greenhouse that lets you bloom in your own way, and in your own time. It’s like having a sweet nanny/fairy godmother who knows your potential but allows you to reach it, just on your own and only when you are ready, planting the seeds, keeping you nourished and nurtured, and slowly filling you with the faith and the confidence which she already has in spades for you. And when the time is right, she gently, and optimistically, sets you free. At least JMU was that way when I was a student there. It’s something in the mountain air there. It’s a secret emanating from its sacred Bluestones that just makes you know how blessed you are to ease into final adulthood there. I once heard someone say that they had never met more people with higher E.Q.s than people who had gone to James Madison University. James Madison is good at making sure that every graduate, graduates as a “whole” person. And is there any better way to go at life than when you are filled with a sense of your own wholeness? Is there any better protective cloak in life than being whole?

Obviously, it goes without saying that I love James Madison University, but we aren’t known for our football team. It’s only in the last five years or so, that JMU has ever made national news, regarding its football team. And that is a huge contrast to the team which we are playing tomorrow. The University of Oregon’s football team has a long legacy of NFL players, Heisman trophy winners and 37 Bowl games under its duckbills. Some football elites are angered that this playoff scenario has even happened. They believe that this “David versus Goliath” experience should not even be allowed, and NCAA rules have already recently been changed to ensure that this won’t likely happen again.

But we are Americans. And we love a Cinderella story. And in my mind, America could really use a Cinderella story right now. I have been to the awe-striking Pacific Northwest previously, but I have never been to Oregon. And it is lovely. It is gorgeous and green and filled with tall, lush, ancient trees. The people here are kind, open-minded, colorful, friendly, and robust. So far, they are treating the many of us East Coast JMU people (many more than I expected to make the trip!), warm-heartedly and with curiosity and consideration. They make me proud to be part of this immensely large and diverse country. I am doing my own best to be a good ambassador of my beloved alma mater, and my own east coast roots and traditions. I want them to feel the same pride and communion which I feel now, even in our competitive spirit tomorrow.

I felt desperate to write this blog post before I came back home, before the game happened even, because it really doesn’t matter the outcome tomorrow. The winning has already happened. The winning has happened for a sweet, not largely known university to make it to the primetime, with guts, grit, brotherhood and a huge belief in themselves. It has happened for a patient, and jubilant fanbase, who excitedly made impromptu plans in the middle of the holidays to make the college football playoffs, at least some part of the plans which were already in place. The winning has happened for a young man and a young woman who met each other one weekend in Harrisonburg, VA and found a love like no other. Sometimes winning is just understanding how is to live in the pure wholeness of your one sweet life and appreciating all the supporting players and systems which have helped you live it, all along the way.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.