Confession #1 - this post doesn't have a thing to do with midlife career changes, now that THAT'S finally been established, but it may help anyone reading this to recognize other common ground. Or, to be thankful that you've never (for starters)......
#2 - I once pissed-off tennis legend Ivan Lendl. While he was putting for par during Mario Lemieux's old charitable golf tournament. Lesson learned...something about an increased whisper decibel level phenomena on golf courses. So my boyfriend at the time said (thanks, Greg).
#3 - I loved Beavis and Butthead.
#4 - I have vacationed alone, and at times loved it, and sometimes hated it.
#5 - I got my first, real, lip-on-lip kiss when I was six years old. From David Tokas, while we cruised the neighborhood side-by-side on our bikes. The best....and we didn't crash.
#6 - I let the dogs lick the dinner plates. That earns an "eeewww" 50% of the time.
#7 - I've never had a spa treatment or massage outside of a medical tent at marathons. Which is just fine by me.
#8 - I was a Partridge Family girl. Edgier, funnier, than the Brady Bunch.
#9 - I am a seven-time pizza-eating champ. It's one of the reasons my former husband married me. And I think I have enough eating soul left, to challenge Adam Richman someday.
#10 - I pray often, but should probably listen more when I do. That's partly the reason for running. It's listening time.....
Off to listen, and to be thankful for a long, long list of "confessions".
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Blogging Virginity, 2
I haven't lost my blogging virginity yet, mainly because I'm still wondering exactly what this should be all about. I told friends that this would focus on our universal mid-life truths, issues, and resiliencies, but I'm not anywhere near qualified to address those things on behalf of, um, "US". Especially since dealing with truths and issues probably became a daily reality for everyone, starting about when the delivering doctor cut the umbilical cord. Yesterday's poopy diapers became the poopy parts of toddler-dom, and so on....leading to today's poopy ________(feel free to fill in the blank).
But the day-to-day living thing is not all about poop (and I'm not typing that word again). Yes it's always there, but it co-exists with - and is often crowded out by - lots of good stuff. Lots. For example, I lost my high-paying corporate marketing job this summer, which "divorced" me from a great paycheck and lots of wonderful co-workers - great friends. But this corporate separation was humane and monetarily generous, and was the hard boot-up-my-ass kick I needed.
So, I'm thinking I should limit "Remove That Fork, I'm Not Friggin' Done Yet!" to chronicling life's current re-invention - changing careers at age 46. Which involves going back to school, which started with finishing prerequisites this past Fall. With 19-year-olds. Who are both completely different and remarkably the same as 27 years ago. In addition to mothering that group, this career shift means completing a 22-month graduate program that begins next June. I'll be mothering a slightly older group of mostly females there, and working with a really, really unresponsive lab partner - a cadaver. I will NOT be doing a sorority-sister do-over (they'd probably blackball me over the cadaver thing anyway), even though I can still recite the Greek alphabet while blindfolded and hopping in circles on one foot. This change also means plugging through almost three years without a paycheck, without losing my home and starving my two rather large dogs, and, entertaining myself and others in frugally creative ways.
So, I can share some of the tricks and things I learn along the way. Without revealing too much insider info about my lab partner-to-be. The rest I can't tell you about because I haven't lived it yet. But check back in once in awhile.....maybe we'll all learn more than we bargained for.
But the day-to-day living thing is not all about poop (and I'm not typing that word again). Yes it's always there, but it co-exists with - and is often crowded out by - lots of good stuff. Lots. For example, I lost my high-paying corporate marketing job this summer, which "divorced" me from a great paycheck and lots of wonderful co-workers - great friends. But this corporate separation was humane and monetarily generous, and was the hard boot-up-my-ass kick I needed.
So, I'm thinking I should limit "Remove That Fork, I'm Not Friggin' Done Yet!" to chronicling life's current re-invention - changing careers at age 46. Which involves going back to school, which started with finishing prerequisites this past Fall. With 19-year-olds. Who are both completely different and remarkably the same as 27 years ago. In addition to mothering that group, this career shift means completing a 22-month graduate program that begins next June. I'll be mothering a slightly older group of mostly females there, and working with a really, really unresponsive lab partner - a cadaver. I will NOT be doing a sorority-sister do-over (they'd probably blackball me over the cadaver thing anyway), even though I can still recite the Greek alphabet while blindfolded and hopping in circles on one foot. This change also means plugging through almost three years without a paycheck, without losing my home and starving my two rather large dogs, and, entertaining myself and others in frugally creative ways.
So, I can share some of the tricks and things I learn along the way. Without revealing too much insider info about my lab partner-to-be. The rest I can't tell you about because I haven't lived it yet. But check back in once in awhile.....maybe we'll all learn more than we bargained for.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Blogging Virginity
Well, here I am. Delivering a bouncing baby blog after about a three-day "gee, it might be fun to blog" pregnancy, then a "sure, what the hell!" puuuush. Not that I've ever given birth to an actual human. That's the thing about looking back at your 46th birthday, and the loves and achievements and disappointments and millions of others things come and gone. You wish, and sometimes wail, often laugh and give thanks, and always bounce back. And occasionally, substitute alternate births once you accept that being a Mom-of-the-First-Order wasn't in The Plan for you.
That's where "remove that fork, I'm not DONE yet!" fits, or is. All people deal with hardships and transitions and tragedies, plus the wonderful flip-sides of those things. You expect to. What I didn't expect at this point, was the total, complete, didn't-see-it-coming weirdness of......being 46. I mean, c'mon. I have survived "big" things - a violent crime, divorce from my college sweetheart, the subsequent loss of the love-of-my-life relationship, the death of my Dad - and countless other real or perceived disappointments and injustices. I've reinvented my life so many times - and very well, if I can say - that I should have a patent. So what's up with this goofy..... weirdness? I hate this next phrase and almost can't write it, but is this what "mid-life crisis" is?
One thing I know, would even guarantee, is that I've done weirdness before. Even though it doesn't seem like it at the moment. So have you. And we will, over and again. Each time an expected or unexpected transition, or "significant life milestone" unfolds. There are LOTS of those. Occasionally, when minor injustices hit. And sometimes, weirdness just materializes for no damn tangible reason at all. But each time, we scream to win each round with it, and fight like bloody hell to keep our spirit one step ahead of whatever might have enough legs to try to run us down.
THAT'S why I only had a three-day blogging pregnancy. No matter what life impairments we create, or encounter, or have thrust on us, we're never done. Or beaten. Always, some life-spark whacks us upside the head to remind each one of us - and anyone who says or thinks "please, just stick a fork in that poor soul" - that we're just not ready for that. Not willing or gonna give up, or give in to the worst possibilities.
So....we give birth to blogs to help squeeze out some of the head-wanderings that just shouldn't be aired on facebook. Even if no one visits. But for those that do, let's have some fun with weirdness, and the quest to out-run it.
That's where "remove that fork, I'm not DONE yet!" fits, or is. All people deal with hardships and transitions and tragedies, plus the wonderful flip-sides of those things. You expect to. What I didn't expect at this point, was the total, complete, didn't-see-it-coming weirdness of......being 46. I mean, c'mon. I have survived "big" things - a violent crime, divorce from my college sweetheart, the subsequent loss of the love-of-my-life relationship, the death of my Dad - and countless other real or perceived disappointments and injustices. I've reinvented my life so many times - and very well, if I can say - that I should have a patent. So what's up with this goofy..... weirdness? I hate this next phrase and almost can't write it, but is this what "mid-life crisis" is?
One thing I know, would even guarantee, is that I've done weirdness before. Even though it doesn't seem like it at the moment. So have you. And we will, over and again. Each time an expected or unexpected transition, or "significant life milestone" unfolds. There are LOTS of those. Occasionally, when minor injustices hit. And sometimes, weirdness just materializes for no damn tangible reason at all. But each time, we scream to win each round with it, and fight like bloody hell to keep our spirit one step ahead of whatever might have enough legs to try to run us down.
THAT'S why I only had a three-day blogging pregnancy. No matter what life impairments we create, or encounter, or have thrust on us, we're never done. Or beaten. Always, some life-spark whacks us upside the head to remind each one of us - and anyone who says or thinks "please, just stick a fork in that poor soul" - that we're just not ready for that. Not willing or gonna give up, or give in to the worst possibilities.
So....we give birth to blogs to help squeeze out some of the head-wanderings that just shouldn't be aired on facebook. Even if no one visits. But for those that do, let's have some fun with weirdness, and the quest to out-run it.
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