Hello. It’s a been a minute . . . but I’m feeling the need to write an update . . . . for me. My cousin was recently laid off from a high-powered job. She has started writing a blog about this experience. She has expressed to me, that me and my blog inspired her to start writing her own story. She says that she is surprised as to how cathartic it is to write about what happens in your life, and how it makes you so much better understand how you are processing everything which you are experiencing in your own one, precious life. Friends, write about your own life (even if it is in a private journal, just for yourself, for your eyes only). Learn about yourself. Be surprised. I am beginning to believe that this act of writing is practically an imperative, in order to fully experience the entire scopes of our lives. Your story is an important thread of it all. Write it. Read it. Embrace it. Begin to understand . . . .
I am writing to you from a hotel room in New York City. New York City has been a part of my history since I was young child. We would visit relatives in New York City almost every Thanksgiving when I was a kid, experiencing the Macy’s Day Parade, Broadway, and all of the visceral sights and sounds which are entirely New York City’s alone. The pace of NYC is insane. I was walking along city blocks tonight, all by myself, laughing at how out of breath I was, trying to keep up with the rush hour walkers. I usually pride myself in my unusually fast pace of doing anything and everything. Yet, on this evening, New York seemed to say to me, “Move to the side, Floridian . . . . we’ve got places to go and your slow-ass is in the way!”
Recently, I paused writing this blog, because I felt that I was in a turning point time for me. It was one of those times of false security. It was one of those times that I falsely believed that I had it all figured out. I honestly felt like, “You’ve made it, girl. You got all of your four children to adulthood, all in good stead. You got through the pandemic years, and the worst years of your son’s epilepsy, and the deeply depressing years of your mother-in-law’s slow decline and eventual death. And now, Voila! You got to a good year- a really good year -2024. And honestly, 2024 has been a year of amazing adventures, and new excitements, and pride and relief, and a rekindling of the focus on just me and my husband, since the two of us were barely adults. And it’s been great! And it’s been revitalizing! And then, in just the last couple of weeks, the community which I have called home for more than a decade has experienced two horrific hurricanes in the span of about ten days. And also, at the same time our eldest son and his wonderful longtime girlfriend, got engaged to be married. And I was soberly reminded that I will never be at the “all settled” point in my life while I am still living it. I got reminded that there will always be good in my life, and there will always be less than good in my life. Life is messy. Life is wonderful. Life is hard. Life is simple. Life is complicated. Life is confusing. Life is beautiful. And all of this swirl of life, usually happens all at once. And so you have to be brave to accept it all, and to deeply know that you are up to the challenge of feeling it all, experiencing it all, handling it all.
In my life, I am most grateful for my ability to connect. As Garth Brooks sings, “I have friends in low places” but I also have friends in palaces. Tonight, in my wanderings in NYC, I chatted with homeless people, and investment bankers in swanky bars. I chatted with bellhops, and a priest in a world-famous cathedral. I connected with all of them, all because of my deep intuitive knowing that we are all so imperatively and intrinsically connected to each other. I don’t think that this wisdom fully comes about until you are willing to surrender to the idea that you honestly don’t know shit. Your primary job is to experience it all, and then, to write it all down.
This meme cracks me up. Interestingly, it was my youngest self who was the surest that she knew everything. Now, I am just grateful that my ever constant guardian angel, kept me alive.
Life is a constant growing process and it never stops until our ending day. It is strange to be in my mid-fifties, and to be able to reflect on, and to laugh at my many, many younger selves (that sweet little girl, that deeply insecure teenager who came off as so full of herself, that naive twenties lady who was pregnant and tired a lot, that slightly rebellious thirties woman who seemed to be trying to relive her teen years, that female in her forties who had to unlearn everything that she thought she already knew.) I wonder what my sixties self will think about my fifties version? I think that “idiot” is a bit harsh. I think that it is best to look at all versions of ourselves with love, and compassion and understanding, but also to be humble enough to know that we are in an ever-evolving state of growth. If we do this, we walk hand-in-hand with our guardian angels, as we journey onward into the days of our lives.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
Hi, friends and readers!!! I’m back. I’ve missed you, and writing the Adulting-SecondHalf blog, so, so much. But I just came back from a wonderful trip to London and other parts of England. (My husband and I just had to check up on our daughter who is studying there this summer. We knew that she missed us. Ha!) I had never been to England before, and I was so utterly pleased with what I experienced. I am not a city dweller. I love nature. I like to call myself “Snow White.” But if I had to live in a city, London is the most liveable city that I have ever travelled to, and I have been fortunate enough to have visited many cities in our own country, and abroad.
But before I bore you to death with my trip details, I do realize that this is Friday and it is a good one!! It’s the New Moon. We are officially, fresh-starting the second half of the year. What do you want for the rest of this year? It’s a perfect time to reflect, get your thoughts down in writing, and start taking steps towards what you want. My first half of the year has been amazing – chock full of adventures, travel, visits with family and friends, weddings, the birthday clump of our family members, holidays etc. etc. Honestly, it’s been delightful, but it’s also been a lot. I like the second half of the year because things don’t get too drummed up for our family, until the holidays at the end of the year. Things in my life never seem as frenzied during the second half of the year. I like spontaneity and the second half of the year seems to allow for more of it. But, I digress. . . . today is Favorite Things Friday on the blog!! Today my favorite is packing cubes. I had never used these before in my travels, but my daughter insisted that they make a huge difference in utilizing space in your luggage. I purchased a soft set of about seven packing cubes for this trip, and while I’ve never been good about rolling up my stuff like little sushi rolls (my husband, being a long-time military brat, is a master at this), I loved how organized these cubes kept my stuff. My tops were with my tops. My bottoms were with my bottoms. My hair stuff was all together and easily found. My suitcase was no longer the jack-in-the-box jumble that it usually is, when I am travelling. If you have never tried packing cubes, I highly recommend giving them a try.
Okay, for those of you who want my reflections on London and other parts of England, here they are, in no particular order:
+ England has excellent food. It is a mistaken thought that the only thing good to eat in England is fish and chips. (although, I had fish and chips and it was yummy) I had incredible food including delicious steak ale pies, delectable sandwiches, fantastic Indian food, superfresh and colorful greens and fruits and desserts from Borough Market . . . now you may think, “Well yes, you were in a major city in the world. There is competition and variety,” but I will tell you that the best food that I had on my trip was in a tiny pub, out in the country, near Salisbury, England. We had “Sunday Roast” there which was like a fabulous Thanksgiving meal. You could choose beef or chicken or steak pie, and then on top of each of these was a huge Yorkshire Pudding. Yorkshire Pudding was maybe my favorite item that I ate the whole time I was in England. Yorkshire Pudding is a delightful, doughy cloud that you dip in gravy. I adore it!
+ I kept describing London as the most “wholesome” city I have ever been to, and we went all over London. My husband and I averaged walking about 20,000 steps a day. (my kids were never a fan of our style of vacationing. “Some people like to relax on vacation,” was something which we often heard muttered by one, or by all four of our children, on our various vacations) London has wide streets, lower buildings, less traffic (the London Underground is safe, easy to navigate, quiet, and reliable – we took it everywhere), and lots of green spaces. The people are reserved, but kind and polite and eager to help you. It’s a wonderful place for “eye candy”: beautiful historic cathedrals and buildings, colorful flowers outside of every pub, gorgeous, multicultural people with smart, dressed-up, intriguing style. In short, London is everything it’s cracked up to be.
+ My husband and I saw King Charles being driven out of Buckingham Palace, quite by chance. We noticed that the gates to the palace had been opened, and a crowd was gathering around the road by the gates. My husband and I were curious, but having it be our first day in London, we instead decided to meander over to the fountain in front of the palace to see it more closely. The next thing we knew, a police officer stopped traffic on the road, just a few feet away from us, and a luxurious black car drove by with the white-haired king sitting in the back, his fingers in front of his body, held in a position, much like when you were a kid and you were playing, “Here is the church, Here is the steeple”. His fingers were in “steeple position.”
+ We toured St. Paul’s Cathedral, The British Museum, Southwark Cathedral, The Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. All were interesting. I particularly liked the smaller Southwark Cathedral where Shakespeare is said to have spent a lot of time and I delighted in having the proper English afternoon tea experience (with a three stack tower of treats) at The British Museum while my husband satiated himself in Egyptian history. While all of the buildings and their historical significance were incredible, it struck me that Westminster Abbey was essentially an extremely enormous fancy mausoleum. And having spent most of our time in The British Museum staring at mummies and sarcophaguses from Egyptian tombs, it struck me that it is kind of sad and egotistical that many of the wealthy humans of our past were so fixated on the afterlife, and of being remembered by future people. (other than major historical figures and writers buried in Westminster Abbey, I knew very few of the names nor the significance of the people buried there) I honestly found the experience to be an excellent reminder that life on earth is NOW. And as happens on all of my travels, I was sincerely amazed how many millions of different people I was witnessing every day, all over just one city, on our great big Earth. (and as happens on all of my travels, there were plenty of Americans afoot. You just can’t escape us. There is a line from a song, whose band and name escapes me now, where the singer dejectedly and flatly states, “Oh, you’re all still here.” That line played in my mind a few times on this trip.) Anyway, what I felt deeply reminded of, when I reflected on all of the carefully planned, and elaborately and expensively made “death artifacts” is that our life’s experience is really mostly just consequential to ourselves, and to the few people in our inner circle. This realization is freeing. Stop focusing on making an impression on other people. Just be yourself, and be kind, and live each precious moment of your life fully and consciously. Don’t fear death. Focus on living your life.
+ My favorite part of the trip was being with family whom we don’t get to see often at all. (it’s hard, living across the pond, and all) They live by the sea in England, and we took a train out to see them, and even though we hadn’t seen each other in years, the love flowed fervently. We even met children that we had never met before and by the end of the night, we were all hugging and professing our love for each other. We “saw” each other. There is something so special and uncanny about “the family bond.” We even all went to Stonehenge together and I had honestly expected that to be the most spiritual experience of my trip. But it wasn’t. The most spiritual part of the trip wasn’t the cathedrals, nor the choirs singing in chapels, nor the mysterious giant rocks of Stonehenge. The most spiritual part of my trip was a reminder of just how beautiful and strong the elastic bonds of love, hold us all together. Great, loving arms enfold us all. This I know.
It’s great to be back. I love you. I missed you. See you tomorrow!!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
1488. Do you prefer sporty or academic members of the opposite sex? (Lucky for me, my husband is both.)
“If you listen closely, when people give advice they’re actually talking to younger versions of themselves.” – Dr. Nicole LaPerla
One of my horoscopes today talked about using this month to turn “wounds into wisdom.” I think that this is what aging is all about. I believe that life is a constant cycle and process of turning wounds into wisdom. Sometimes we don’t reflect enough, or we aren’t honest enough with ourselves to do true introspection, and thus we just keep tearing apart at our wounds, making them bleed more and not allowing for the healing process. But we eventually, usually get it. And when we do “get it”, we are sad that our younger selves didn’t quite “get it” in what we deem to be a timely manner, so we at least try to save others, by spouting off advice.
It can be off-putting to get advice, especially unsolicited advice. Bernard Williams calls unsolicited advice, “the junk mail of life.”
“Wise people advice from experience.Wiser people, from experience, do not advice.” – Amit Kalantri
That’s the thing, we get most of our deepest wisdoms from our experiences. And so we desperately try to save others from having similar tough experiences that we’ve had, yet it is those very experiences which gave us our own deepest, best wisdom. What a Catch-22!
I’m guilty of spouting off too much advice, and I do it all of the time. I do it to my kids, my husband, my friends, my pets (“Trip don’t provoke Ralphie, you know where this leads . . . .), strangers I meet on the street. Hell, I do it here on the blog all of the time. Please forgive me. It doesn’t come from my wisest self. My advice comes from my desire to “save (“control”) the world.” (or if I am honest, like Nicole LaPerla says, my advice is my desire to prove to my younger self that I’ve learned and I’ve grown. Perhaps trying to save others from my own mistakes, is a gift that I am trying to give to my own younger self for putting her through a lot of tough experiences, that often took a long, long while to alchemize into wisdom.)
Mantra for the day: Self, I forgive you. Self, I appreciate you. Self, your experiences were worth the gold of your wisdom. Self, let go and trust this process of turning experience into wisdom, for your own self going forward, and for all whom you love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
The other night, when we were watching a football game, the color/honor guard came out and the announcer proudly introduced some members of our armed forces, representing our “Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Space Force.” I am aware of Space Force. This is not the first time that I had heard about it, but to hear it grouped into our armed forces, in such a natural, matter-of-fact way, kind of gave me a breathless pause. I thought to myself, what used to be only parts of science fiction and fantasy, has now become reality for all of the little ones coming up in this world. For the little ones, there is nothing strange and other worldly and awe-striking about Space Force, or electric cars, or your phone being able to turn on your dishwasher.
I have reached that age in life where a lot of what I took for granted as a little one, is now becoming (or has become) obsolete. It is such a strange mix of feelings to process this fact. Some people fight so hard to hang on to the things and ways of their time of being little ones. Some people desperately try to keep themselves uber-modernized, perhaps with the hopes of remaining “a little one” forever. I think that I am a little bit of a muddled-mix. I find myself liking to shock the younger ones (like my elders did) with stories of just how “crazy” the old days were, such as long summer days of riding bicycles, without wearing helmets, miles and miles away from home. My daughter was aghast to hear that I went door-to-door, in my bright green Girl Scout uniform, with my cute little matching beanie, selling cookies, when I was a little one. “Did anyone try to lure you into the basement?” she asked, when I admitted to going inside houses, while people took the time to handwrite their orders. But, at the same time, I also find myself admonishing myself to remember to not become a boring, old, stodgy, stubborn relic, “stuck in her ways”. There is a lot of progress in change. One of my mentees, the high schooler, who mostly leads a sheltered life at home, mentioned that she went on a trip over the holidays, and she was happy to see so many rainbow flags in stores, supporting gay people. I told her, “I’m happy about that, too. When I was a little one, many people hid the fact that they were gay, and there was so much hurt and brokenness created from people not being able to feel free to be themselves.”
The older that I get, the more I have come to the acceptance of the fact that there is so much in life that I have very little control over. What I can control is my reaction and my response to life as it is, and to life as it unfolds. I am trying to do this gracefully. I admit that I stumble a lot. But I always get back up again. At one time, early in my journey, I was a little girl in a little green beanie, and now I am way further up the road, watching people on my smart TV, in their smart Space Force uniforms. The beauty of aging is the breathtaking appreciation of how purely awesome it is to witness, with every sense in my body, Creation boldly unfold itself into the endless future.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I figured that we could all use some holiday cheer:
My daughter asked me how to begin her letter to Santa Claus so I suggested she start with, “Hear me out …” (@Dad_At_Law Twitter)
credit: Rex Masters, Twitter
Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish readers!!!
****I know that a lot of you are worried about me and my family, but we are doing okay. A good night’s sleep does wonders. One Day at a Time. It’s the only way to live. You savor and experience your life more that way. Don’t worry. Be happy.****
When you raise a big family (we have four kids), you do a lot of dishes and laundry and driving and PTA forms. You do a lot of juggling of schedules and cars in the driveway. There is a steady hum of noise in the house, always. You are constantly cleaning up messes.
When your big family grows up and moves out, you honestly sometimes forget what raising the big family was like. And then they come home for the holidays, and you are swiftly reminded. As you are doing yet another load of laundry and the dishwasher is running yet again and your husband is vacuuming for the third time in one day, and you have to yell out over all of the noise for someone to move their car so that another car can get out of the garage, and you are trying to remember where everyone is and where everyone is supposed to be, you take a pause and you smile to yourself. You are reminded that you made it through 12 years of high schoolers, relatively unscathed. You are reminded that you helped to give a good, solid start to four wonderful people who are already making a difference in this world. You pat yourself on the back with sheepish pride. And although you realize that you certainly don’t have the energy to do it all again, you are incredibly happy that at one time in your life, you did have the energy to raise a big family. You realize that your big family helped to make your heart grow big, and a big heart is full of love and love is the stuff that sustains you, and that thought is what carries you through the final folding of towels and sheets, from the recent reunion of your big, beautiful brood.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
