Hello all! Sorry, I was not here last week. I was attending a momentous event that left me too emotionally drained to give the content my readers deserve. Going forward, I will let you know if I will miss a week.

In my last post, I told you about my plans to enter semi-retirement. Well, I have decided to change that. I am fully retired. I have a small part-time job to give me structure. And honestly, that is all it does. I fell into the perfect position to give me a good reason to wake up. I drive about 35 minutes from my house on one of the most picturesque roads known to man through the Vermont mountains. When I arrive, I sit in a small office and read. My only other obligation is to check the mail at this location, and if any is received, mail it out via FedEx, which is on my way home. The kind of job I had always dreamed of, with it only being three hours per day, is enough time to get into a good book, but not too much that I am bored.

So, in the span of a weekend, I went from 10-14 hour days at a job I wasn’t paid enough for my hard work, knowledge, and experience to being paid an outstanding amount for sitting and reading. So far, that is what I have done. But when I get home by 1 pm every day, I have a lot of hours to fill. Suddenly, the pressure to fill these hours was immense. I mean, just like almost everyone, my whole adult life has been prioritizing tasks because you only have so much free time. Self-care is essential, especially when you only have 2 days most weeks to accomplish all things that you cannot do on a typical workday. Sundays used to be my sacred day. Don’t ask me to leave my house that day cause it ain’t happening. I spent those Sundays watching tv, napping, and stressing about the following week. I have been freed from that. So, how do I turn this early retirement into something productive? Well, anyone? Seriously, who wants to help me out here.

Well, I started looking at many tasks that I let utterly fall by the wayside or ones I have always wanted to do. Things have come into unexpected focus. I have the time now. Life’s biggest excuse has been taken away from me, and I am unsure how I feel about it. “One day, when I have the time” is no longer a dream. I have no excuses. I have nothing to hide behind.

I am now accountable for what I do with my time. Not in the way I was with a boss but to myself. If I don’t accomplish anything one week, I have no one to answer to but myself, and I am a tough cookie!!! House is a mess? Well, you are home 20 hours a day! What the hell? Why are your college assignments not completed? You have so much time. I am finding that I am pretty tough on myself and trying instead to understand why I am so upset and easily angered by my actions. That one is rough. All the past traumas in my life have created this array of coping mechanisms. Some of these traumas are your typical GenX traumas. We are the forgotten generation of kids born during a transition period in the country. also had personal traumas that people have had to deal with throughout time. So many of our actions are dictated by the melting pot that is our own life. Throw in some bullying, a dash of mental illness, past abuse, lack of confidence, and not having the tools I needed to succeed. Some of these are easier to overcome than others, but all are tough. As I try to figure out the correct route, I do know one thing. If someone told me this would be my life six years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. I was living a sorrowful existence. was working for a horrific boss, and I still suffer from PTSD; I was living just barely above paycheck to paycheck, didn’t have a social life, and had been single for so long that I was beginning to think I would never find the right one. , somehow, never gave up hope. Now, I am living in my own home as a writer, working for a boss who never bothers me, happily married, with all of the time in the world.

Until next week…….

Well, hello my minions, those who are captivated and enthralled by every word that comes out of my mind and through my fingers onto your screen, how the hell are ya? Okay, excuse the hyperbole there but the last four weeks of blogging were gut wrenching to write and for many, was gut wrenching to read. But that is life. Things you are given and love and cannot imagine living without getting taken from you, some as expected but some that you never thought you would have to go without. So now, let us lighten this up again and tell you about something AMAZING that is happening in my life currently and I cannot wait to share with you. Whether I popped up on an ad or you have been following me, I have been looking forward to writing this blog since May 16, 2023. But first, some background.

I have been married for almost 4 years now and she has changed my world. I was working for an extremely mentally abusive boss who honestly, had left me feeling worthless and wishing for death daily. When I met my wife, we knew we were meant to be, and I moved in with her after only three months and moved away from this horrific situation (more on that in future blogs.) My next job was for a wonderful and completely self-made man whom I admire for many many reasons. Even after my wife’s job took us 250 miles away, I still worked a hybrid schedule and would drive down to the office every other week and sleep in a bedroom he had down in the basement of the office. However, after falling in love with the state of New Hampshire, when we bought a house, I couldn’t bear to leave it every other week, so I left his employ and was lucky enough to find a wonderful local job. My adopted hometown has a population of eight hundred, give or take a couple. In the town, there are three main employers, a book binding company, a dairy processor, and a slaughterhouse. I have worked in all aspects of Office Management, including payroll, HR, property management, A/P, A/R, just to name a few so I never worry about finding a job and I got lucky, and the slaughterhouse was hiring for the office. This is a USDA facility and has nothing but the strictest rules on humane handling of the animals, health of the animals, and traceability. This job is not for everyone, but we are a rag tag group of lovable weirdos. I have previously called them “My Tribe,” and they will all own that title. We are a big family, and that is due to the business being owned by a fabulous husband and wife team. The wife gave me a chance, a locally unproven person from a big city, to manage her books. I cannot imagine how stressful that must have been for her. Although I had the office skills, I did NOT have the meat skills, or any farming knowledge to talk to the farmers intelligently about their animals they were bringing in for processing. They would tell me the breed of cattle and I had no idea what that meant. Now I can at least fake my way through it surprisingly good, lol. But I digress. I had been working for this couple for a few months shy of two years. The pair have five children and each one is so phenomenal and their own person yet have so many core values of their parents and each have their own skills, talents, and personalities that make them all incredible people. The husband passed away unexpectedly from a chronic illness and his wife, a nurse by trade, couldn’t bear to keep the plant without her husband and best friend. After the loss of my niece less than three months after my boss’s loss, she and I became each other’s shoulder to cry on. We had so many heart to heart talks, talking about what was the same for us going through our grief, what was different, and we would be envious of some differences and grateful for others. And we shared this mutual intense grief until the plant sold on November 18, 2022. Then the new owner came in. With the new owner came a partner and a team of IT, accountants, experts, and a complete overnight change to philosophy. Our processing of animals is so well known, people drive hours to either have their animal processed by us or shop in a small store for the best quality products. That has not changed. What changed was we no longer feel the same feeling of family. What was once an always open office door is now closed at least half of the time due to Zoom Meetings. There is now such an unbreakable chain of command that when your issue is your superior, you are pretty much screwed. I knew the transition was going to be hard. I spoke to the plant owner and her cousin who was also the slaughterhouse’s accountant about how difficult it is at a job to change ownership. I have never had a job where I survived 6 months of ownership change, usually due to layoffs, but occasionally it is the drastic change of my job duties and responsibilities, among other aspects. And this was one of those cases. I decided to start looking to find another job. I have some unique skills, not in the Taken kind of way, but I worked for a staffing company that had employees in twelve different states, including both coasts. I set up tax accounts, resident agents, filed papers, and got all payroll and business papers and accounts set up as required by these states across the country from my office in Maryland. I now live in New Hampshire but so close to Vermont, I can see it out my backyard when the trees do not have leaves. So being able to oversee payroll for multiple states is a skill I have of particular value in this area. In addition, I have attended around seventy-five unemployment hearings fighting for the company. I applied in March for two different jobs that I knew my skills were the perfect unicorn to fill and did not get either. It was quite a blow. Then my wife gave me some words of wisdom, “Maybe you didn’t get those jobs because you weren’t meant to have them.” You see, my wife and I are believers in having the strength to allow what is meant to be to be. When we try to force our way into situations, it leads to misery. Both of us had first marriages that we should have never been in, but we panicked and forced our way into making it work. Since my divorce, my mantra has been “Give me the strength to allow what is meant to be to be.” So, I stayed a little longer at this job until I could see what it was that was meant to happen. After another very frustrating day at the office, I looked for a job on a popular job search website. I found an A/R, A/P job paying what I make with about a quarter of the responsibility. I wondered if I could be happy with that. My whole life I worked my tail off to get promotions and to prove my value. I also am a bit of a control freak. Excuse me while I wait for the laughter to end by those that know me and cannot believe I only wrote “a bit.” I decided to at least apply and see. I did and within 5 minutes received a call and had an interview scheduled for the following Friday. That was very invigorating. I was closing the jobsite window I was using when not a moment later, something else that infuriated me happened at the office, and no I can’t remember what exactly due to so damn many things that have happened, that I immediately went back to the website and found a completely different job, for a part time operations specialist who opens mail Monday through Friday from 9-12. I started wondering am I so stressed cause of this job, or am I so stressed because I am working full time with tons of overtime, and going to school, about to start grad school, working to get myself followers on my Facebook page, writing a weekly blog, and taking care of an old large house? Honestly, that was what made sense, so I decided to apply for the part time job also. Later that day, I scheduled an interview. This was the opportunity that I had hoped for. I had two job interviews. Chances were good I would get one at least, Even if I didn’t, there are at least part time jobs to be had. I went into my boss’s office armed with a list of my daily duties and items I do every day. It filled two sheets of paper. I told him I wanted a raise. He gave me one, but not enough. And then, he said the thing that made my decision permanent and never changing. “For me giving you this raise, you need to focus more. I know you go to school, and you write but I need your focus to be here when you are here.” Before he finished the sentence, I had already given my notice in my mind. Not only did I take that statement as a slap in the face, but it was also he who had pulled up a chair at my desk and asked me what I was going to school for and what was my plan for it just two days prior. It was as if he had purposely set me up to have this in his back pocket. One more note on this. I am about to lay some knowledge on you that a good half of you may know, but the rest will blow your mind. Let me start at the beginning. One reason I was so unhappy is they will pick my brain for HR issues, such as how to terminate employment properly, hiring practices, etc. They really do not know the basics of the laws at all!!!! Embarrassingly so for an owner of multiple companies. About an hour after our meeting, he sent me a text not to speak of my pay raise to anyone, that this is private. Okay, ready for the knowledge boys and girls? The ones that know this are now smiling. A boss cannot compel you in any way shape or form, either by threat of termination, by putting in an employee handbook, or even by nonchalant statement, to keep your pay private from your coworkers, This is considered Union Busting and is ILLEGAL!!!!!!! I cannot stress this enough. YOU CANNOT BE COMPELLED TO NOT SHARE YOUR PAY!!! For me, I never wanted to know everyone’s pay. I understand that employers want to get the best possible help as cheaply as possible. I always blamed myself for that. If I was not getting paid what I was worth, it was my fault for not being confident enough. And then I started being a payroll manager. Now I know why my thinking was so backwards. I have had a couple of jobs where I underbid myself because I needed the job and they still paid me what they felt I was worth, in one case giving me $3 more an hour. My view on the role of the person that hires is not to get talent as cheap as possible. It is to give talented people the sweet spot between what they deserve and what the company can afford to pay. As a payroll manager, I saw some very fair payment policies, and some very unfair and downright misogynistic policies. I have had owners that were former sales managers pay the sales team twice my salary plus commission who have never worked in anything close to sales while my skills, which took years to learn, have been unnoticed. If you do not want to share your salary, then don’t. There is nothing wrong with that. However, if you want to, you should do it. There is strength in numbers; to get change going, we need to organize. Not all jobs do this, and please do not take drastic measures, as many places want to make their employees happy because if you are happy, you have drive and loyalty. And for those bosses that do not get it, remember the words of the fabulous Lisa Simpson “They have the plant, but we have the power.” That evening I had my interview for the mail handling job, and it was more than I could have hoped for. I will be the sole person in an office getting the mail, sorting, and sending it off to where it belongs. As a writer, this is a dream job. I am taking a significant pay cut, and I am great with it. Through hard work, a bit of luck, and a willingness to sacrifice, I can now officially make the following statement: As of noon on June 1st, 2023, I will be semi-retired. Just 6 years ago, I cried myself asleep many nights thinking I would never be able to retire. I have two uncles still working complex physical jobs in their mid 70’s. But now, thanks to meeting the world’s most perfect match for me and feeling confident in both my abilities and where the next chapter of my life is going, I can finally take a breath and enjoy life. I had the interview for the job I am taking on May 16, 2023. After telling my wife, she told me, “Mark today’s date down; it is the day your life is gonna change in a big way.” She saw how the next 2 weeks were going to unfold. As the reality of my decision sets in, I am amazed at what this means for me and my life. I will get to spend my days reading and writing. I can work on puzzles in my home office while having a cocktail and just plot and let my mind wander into new thoughts for more writing. I cried A LOT before I met my wife. I often felt alone, depressed, anxious and in complete despair. I took a chance a wink on a dating app, and now I am about to embark on my next chapter that feels like a fantasy I never thought I would accomplish.

Thank everyone for helping to give me direction, supporting my writing by reading and subscribing to my page and website, and hopefully help me fulfill each new dream I dare to invest in.

Until Next Time, EGA

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Hello All. So glad you could come back for the second part of this blog. When I set out to write this blog last week, I had no intentions of it being a multi-part blog. Writing that blog was so completely draining, I knew I couldn’t finish so I just brought us up to this millennia. If you haven’t read the first part, please search for it, or if you are a Facebook follower, it can be found easily on my website JessicaCalabriaAuthor.com. Go ahead, I will wait. At the beginning of 2000, my great grandmother, a woman who went by Meenie Maw, succumbed to dementia. It was a brutal process. My tough as nails great grandmother who was the sweetest and most gentle person I ever knew, lived until her late 80’s. In her life, she was a strong woman and a pioneer. Hazel was married to a tenant farmer and they had two daughters, Luci and Arlene. When the farmer who owned the land sold, they all moved to Baltimore, where I am originally from. My great-grandmother worked at 3 different waitress jobs, with the time between used to cook her two children and husband meals. My great grandfather was a painter. When the weather wasn’t right for painting, he would just stay home. Meenie Maw was much too strong a woman to put up with this buffoonery and left him. I told you she was a pioneer. Hazel eventually met Harry, a band leader, who renamed his band “The Hazelnuts.” He died almost twenty five years before her, and he was still one of her favorite things to not only talk about, but brag about how wonderful he was. Now here is a little something different to throw on to the grief train. In 2004, I was divorced. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that grieving is not a normal part of divorce. My ex-husband and I were married young, he was 19, I was 18, and we managed to stay together for almost 13 years. The reason for the breakup isn’t important, except for the aspect of our youth. When we divorced, I was 31, had spent all of my adult life in service to his military career, and had sacrificed my own goals as it is hard to have your own goals as an Army wife. I volunteered a lot and did work wherever we were, but I sacrificed myself for the marriage and then was left with nothing. No more military benefits, but the hardest to me was the loss of the whole college experience. I missed my twenties as a free woman, but that was just delayed to my 30’s. The loss of going to college and living on campus was something I dreamed of as a child for as long as I could remember, and now, that was never going to happen. Luckily, I had a work around for this also. I am just about to finish my degree and in the application process of a MFA program where I will live for 2 weeks a year at an intense session for writers. From this grief, I was able to rise like the mighty phoenix. Shortly after I moved back home, I lost the first of the generation of my mother when her only brother died. My Uncle Rick was not only hard as nails, he was a big softie also. Rick was a Marine and then became a firefighter until he fell through a roof and hurt his back in the line of duty. He was the only boy and quite a bit older than my mother, close to ten years older, but my mother said when they would bump into each other when out and about with friends, Rick would always ask if the needed anything like money. He had three daughters whom he adored and who loved him completely. Then in 2013, the world of my family was rocked in a way we couldn’t have imagined. Longevity runs in my family. My Aunt Sharon went into surgery to have a simple gallbladder removal surgery. I had mine removed at 23 in 1997 and my mother had hers removed when she was just barely 16. My grandmother had what was called, at least in the 70’s, a “porcelain gallbladder.” She was told that her gallbladder was nonfunctional and was just a hard mass. I think my Aunt Sharon was hoping for the same thing. However, when they started the surgery, it was discovered that she had terminal bile duct cancer. Man, let me say this now. Fuck cancer. For the people in the cheap seats FUCK CANCER!!!! I am so sick of losing so many good people to this. As has the world. So, one last time, shouting from the mountain tops FUCK CANCER!!!! We lost Aunt Sharon on November 5, 2014, which is also my brother’s birthday. Seven years later I lost my cat Millie to mammary cancer on November 5 also. In 2014, my aunt had lost her long term boyfriend David, suddenly to a stroke or heart attack. Throughout the services, she was heard to have been muttering “This wasn’t supposed to be how this happened.” Even with her death so imminent, the grief was still so real to her. She lost her companion of almost 20 years. In 2017, my dad was hospitalized. He called me and my brother to visit him on a Wednesday night at the local hospital. He was a man nearing 69 in less than 2 months, so trips to the hospital did happen occasionally. He had lost his second wife, Caroline, a year and a half earlier, and he spent his days at the cemetery talking to her grave. My dad had worked as a steelworker when I was growing up and later on as a truck driver. He loved driving and it was without a doubt a great fit for him. So when he summoned us, didn’t think too much of it. He told us that he had terminal lung cancer. All together now FUCK CANCER!!!! He said he was going to start chemo the next day, but he didn’t know how long he had. My father was in a lot of pain but do to his 25+ years of being clean and sober, would not take anything stronger than a Tylenol. My brother, his wife, 2 kids, me, and my mother were leaving for Disney World in a couple of weeks so my brother and I started talking to make arrangements to see him as much as we could with whatever time we had left. Two days later, on Friday, just as I pulled into my parking spot at work, I got a call from my brother. He told me that a nurse had called him and let him know that my father was not scheduled to get chemo, my father had misunderstood him. Chemo would have immediately killed him. The nurse did tell my brother that my father had been moved to hospice and if we wanted to see him, we needed to come that day. I immediately called my boss, stated I wouldn’t be in, and headed over to the hospice. The nurse informed me that she was finally able to convince him to take some morphine. She then explained that morphine suppresses that pulmonary system. There were people in his room when I arrived, and they were from his AA group. I sat next to him and held his hand. My brother arrived shortly after, as did my mother. They may have been divorced for over 25 years but he was her first and only love. Although she didn’t feel anything for him romantically in many years, once you have built something like a life together, they will always be in your heart.  The only words he uttered while I was there was when his brother’s friend gave him a hug and told him “I love you,” and he was barely able to say it back. For a while, it hurt me that he said it only once and to her, but I now see that he was saying it probably to his wife Caroline or to myself. He passed a few minutes after 3 that day with myself holding one hand and my brother holding the other. We sat and just talked and cried for about 15 minutes. The youngest of 8 kids, he had lost two older brothers before I was born. He lost one in a war before he was born, and the other was murdered in the early 70’s. Of the remaining six, he was the first to go, and the first to go after his mother had passed. His funeral was small and his pallbearer’s were his friends from AA. He now lays above his beloved Caroline in the cemetery that he used to just visit daily. Well, dear reader, this appears it is going to be a minimum of a three part blog, as the worst is about to be revealed. Come back next week for the third part of Grief is a *Explicit Language Follows. Thank you dear reader, for taking the time to read.

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As I wanted to start writing the blog, the title I wanted was Grief is a Mother Fucker. But I also don’t want to scare people off. Grief is a raw emotion and to give it the respect it deserves, I will be using raw language. If this is offensive to you, I understand. Grief is offensive to me. So, I shall begin: Grief is a mother fucker. I have known a lot of grief since I was 3 years old. I was lucky enough to know my great great grandmother. She was the first person that I remember being suddenly gone. I don’t remember what I was told, I just knew I missed her, but I would never see her again. She had a favorite chair she used to sit in on the back porch, and it stayed there for about 20 years after we lost her. I vaguely remember being told not to sit on “Mom Mommy’s” chair when she was alive. Then suddenly, it was okay to sit there. It became one of my favorite chairs. Shortly after we lost Mom Mommy, who was living with my great grandmother, Meenie Maw (I will get into family names and other assorted family weirdness later in a different blog,) we lost Meenie Maw’s second husband, and the only person I considered as my great grandfather, to cancer. All I remember after his death is stopping at Meenie Maw’s and looking for Pop Pop and not finding him. I asked Meenie Maw where he was and can still remember the sadness in her eyes. When I was five and a half, my only sibling was born. Just a few months later, my paternal grandmother died. I still remember her as a tough as nails woman, tiny little thing, who had lost her husband 8 years before I was born and was now living with her boyfriend who I called Paps. I still remember traveling three hours to Cumberland, MD where my father’s side of the family is from to have her buried. I remember seeing the town from the highway and thinking even as a little child how small and compact it looked. We stayed at the local Holiday Inn and even though I don’t remember the room or anything else visually, I remember the smell. Back in the day, hotels had a very distinct smell and I loved it. I also remember all my cousins swimming in the hotel pool but me not having a bathing suit and my mother thinking I shouldn’t be swimming because we were in mourning. Oh, how wrong she was, lol. During the graveside service, I became squirmy on my mom’s lap, so my Aunt Jeannie offered to hold me. My mother was mad cause I was having a bit of a meltdown, which was very unusual for me. My mother was upset but my Aunt Jeannie told her I was fine; I was just upset over losing my Mom Mom. (Yes, close to my maternal great great grandmother’s name, but not quite.) I remember sitting there crying cause my mother didn’t want to hold me, and then the words sinking in that I wouldn’t ever get to see my grandmother again. Even though Mom Mom was the third death I had experienced when I wasn’t even six yet, this was when it all came crashing down around me, what death really meant. Then I had a few good years. I remember other students in class when a grandparent would die, and it would be the first time that student had experienced death, while so many other people in class had never experienced it. This is where I think my life was preparing me for a LOT of loss. Shortly after I turned thirteen, I got a call from a friend’s mother, asking if I had seen Laura, who never came home last night. Now my mother was a helicopter mother for the 80’s but would be considered a free-range parent today. I never snuck out or did much of anything that my mother didn’t know about. For five painful days, they couldn’t find Laura. Then, her body was found. She had been murdered. Now, unlike now, in the 80’s, it took no time between a person dying and the services. The viewing was on Labor Day. So instead of seeing friends for the first time since summer break didn’t happen outside of the school on the first day, it happened at the funeral home. My favorite teacher, Ms. Miller, came up to me and told me it looked like I had been crying for days. Which was the truth. I hadn’t stopped for even a minute since she was discovered. Her funeral was on the first day of school and I attended. And if this wasn’t enough, it was also the day I got my first period. Don’t exactly want a milestone like that on the day you are burying a good friend. In 1993, I was a newlywed and living in Missouri when we got the call about my husband’s grandfather, Stanly. He was a small man, steelworker most of his life that had lung cancer. While we were still living in Baltimore, my husband’s grandmother would call us and ask us to go pick up Stanley from the bar, Mr. B’s. We would pile into his tan S-10 pickup and while my husband drove, Stanley would hit on me. Unlike my husband’s grandmother, who didn’t like me because I was a female and she had her own mental issues herself, Stanley always talked to me and enjoyed my company, just like I had always hoped and strived for from my boyfriend’s families. I got a call from my mother when I was almost 24. My husband was in Bosnia at the time when my mother called me in the middle of the night. I just happened to have gotten off of work two hours earlier and had some work friends over. I worked in an adolescent facility that helped kids cope with abuse, depression, drug use, gang affiliation, mental issues, and an assortment of other issues. I loved that job and loved working the 3-11 shift. My favorite aunt, Aunt Luci, had died of a heart attack. I flew home and met my Aunt Sharon’s new boyfriend, David, for the first time, as he was picking up his sister from her flight at about the same time. I don’t remember the ride back to my grandmothers, but I do remember the call. I collapsed on the floor when my mother told me and I thought I could feel my heart break. It was a pain like I hadn’t felt. So intense, so unexpected, so unfair. Aunt Luci was only 68 and heart issues did not run in the family. Less than a year later, my husband’s brother was diagnosed with terminal skin cancer. We traveled from Germany to come home to see him one last time in November of 97, and he passed in January of 98. Jimmy was only 29. He left behind two young daughters, one who was 4, and the other who would turn two about a week after his funeral. I remember my husband going through a rough depression and feeling helpless to help him heal. Nothing I could do would bring back his brother and we both knew it. *Check back next Sunday for our second part of Grief is a*

Hello my good readers,

I can’t tell how much it means to me that I have people that look for and read my weekly blogs. I love writing. I love the release it gives me and the way it helps me to express myself so much better than I can speaking. And believe me, I am quite the speaker. Not as much as my spouse, mind you, who has never met a stranger. I just feel like I work best if I can write and figure things out for myself.

Puzzles give me a lot of inner peace. I get to make order out of chaos, I can focus all of my attention on something, and it allows my mind to travel without putting conscience effort into the exercise. There was a time when my grandmother had to stay with my mother for a few months due to an issue with her house. Granny and I would visit and do puzzles one night a week when I would visit and make her dinner. When my brother and his family and my mother get together with me and my wife, we love to do puzzles together. As my wife works away from home most of the time, puzzles used to fill my evenings with a stress reliever in her absence. I have lost 2 people I used to love to do puzzles with just over a year ago, so I have been afraid to go back. I was afraid that a puzzle wouldn’t be a strong enough of a distractent from my grief. I was afraid it would remind me too much of the two people I miss more than anyone in this world and I will never see again. However, this weekend, something changed. My wife and I usually play cards, Rummy to be exact. However, we both felt an urge to puzzle. So we have completed two in the last two days and I am currently sorting our next puzzle. How do you sort? Edges, then I go according to pattern. This pattern is of World War II posters and I have separated the pieces into ones with words and pieces without words. Thrilling, I know. But sometimes inner peace and happiness comes from just picking up broken pieces and putting them back together in a more pleasing style.

As a relatively new homeowner, I am trying to save as much money as possible. One habit I started when I got case of wanting to shop is looking for things that are free to download in multiple ways. It may be apps for my phone, a browser extension for my laptop, and tonight it was screen savers for my smart tv. On the long list of 800+ screensavers, one is a bit dated, named “Celebrities That Died in 2019.” One of the pictures was of Luke Perry, and I thought, ‘Wow, I can’t believe he has been gone that long.’ It really started me thinking about a meme that came out a few days after he died that’s basically said If you are with a GenX girl, be extra sweet for the next few days. They are not okay. I remember realizing at that point how true that was. Without realizing it, we all had some project or story about Luke Perry that made us all swoon. But he was not the first heartthrob we have lost. We lost River Phoneix, Jonathan Brandis, and Corey Haim, just to name a few. So, what is the difference with Luke Perry? And then it hit me tonight. It is because Luke is the first famous person of our generation that has died from what most of us think as a primarily “Old Person” ailment. This is no longer something we can joke about at our age. This isn’t a “Haha, you got an AARP card” funny thing about getting old or over-the-hill parties. This is something that just happened naturally in his body. This wasn’t a disease. This was a stroke, and no news organizations are talking about how it is possible someone so young could have a stroke. It was more of having a fatal stroke at his age, which is not common, but it does happen. And it was at this moment we all saw our own mortality.

Growing old is a privilege denied to far too many. What is your benchmark for considering yourself old? As I am spitting distance from 50*, I have asked myself if I am about to be old and, if not, when I will be. I have decided not only am I aged, but I am also taking advantage of this new status. I will impart my wisdom to the young. I will wear comfortable clothes unless I must wear something fancy. I work a day job where I wear jeans and T-shirts. Bring on the knit pants if I ever have to dress business casual again. I am not saying I won’t take care of myself. I am not saying I won’t care about my appearance. I am saying I am no longer about wearing uncomfortable clothes to look good. I look good, and we all look good in nice clothes, but we look even better in comfortable clothes. If I could find a comfortable mumu, I would snatch it up in a heartbeat. That used to be my biggest fear was having to wear a mumu. No, I am like, what do I care? No one but my spouse will see me in it, and they have seen me in more hideous outfits than a nice soft mumu. I am scanning the internet to see if I can find any restaurants near our town where the senior discount starts at 50. Bring on the early bird specials. I have even picked out my retirement date. It seems like just yesterday; retirement seemed so weird to be saving for because it felt so far away. My mother and I use readers, but hers aren’t even half as strong as mine. I see how I have evolved from the youngest person in a workplace to the oldest. I talked to two people today that I pegged as 10 years older than me. O was 5 months younger, and the other was 3 years younger. I read of being purposefully blind about the wrinkles on my face; every time I look in the mirror, I look for them. I call them my lines of wisdom. I can’t control what my body does, so why fight it. I admire Jamie Lee Curtis so much because she insists on being natural and just aging as mother nature intends. She is just as beautiful as she has always been. She may not have her youth, but her confidence in being her true self is intoxicating. I look at actresses in Hollywood; honestly, I don’t care about gossip about them or their private lives. They are just people that showcase others’ work. I appreciate a job well done, but the writers fascinate me. But I digress……. Any woman who lives under Hollywood’s constant glare and chooses to let herself just age has my respect. I love the power it takes inside of you to stick to your beliefs enough to sacrifice so much just to let the power help others. So, thank you, Brooke Shields, Salma Hayek, Meryl Streep, Nia Long, Jodi Foster, Andie McDowell, Halle Berry, and so many others who did not take the easy road and dealt and still deal with the pressure and temptation to try to trick the aging process. No, I am not anti-plastic surgery for everyone. You want to get things done. Cool. You do you. Nothing wrong with that. It is a powerful tool for some. I love how we have the option as women choose to age gracefully or fight it like a heavyweight champion. Because that is what we are doing, GenX, we are aging.

*Please see blog from 3/26/23 “Oh no, The Big 5-0:Getting Comfortable with Aging”

Hello to all of my faithful. The last check, that was 7 of you. Woohoo!!!!! Since I only have 1 sibling, this can’t all be family, so I thank you all!!!!!!

I am five and a half years older than my younger brother. It was just the two of us growing up in a typical 70/80/90 household, complete with the parents divorcing during our teenage years. We were the typical GenX kids.

Believe it or not, I remember my mother talking to me about having a new brother or sister. I don’t know if this was before she was pregnant or after she found out, but I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to meet this new best friend they created for me. There are pictures of me holding him the day he came home. I was in a white turtleneck, green corduroy pants, and my hair in 2 braids. I was so happy and excited; I couldn’t wait until he got older. I still remember him waking up as a newborn, my mother sticking her head in my doorway to make sure I wasn’t awake and pretending I was asleep. I would fall asleep listening to my tone-deaf mother singing sweetly to my brother “Close to You” by The Carpenters.

“On the day that you were born the angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold
And starlight in your eyes of blue

That is why all the girls in town
Follow you all around
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you”

And then there was my Dad, who in true dad fashion, used to sing this to my brother when he would hold him.

Go to sleep, little creep

Before I punch you in your little feet

No, that wasn’t a threat. Believe it or not, it was sung as sweetly as a 28-year-old steelworker from Baltimore could muster.

We were in the same elementary school for about a year as we got older. He was in kindergarten while I was in 5th grade. Now, this was in 82-83, so schools were still doing half-day kindergarten. However, my brother was reading and doing math at an elevated level, so he would have lunch and then sit with an older class in the afternoon. The only issue was no one was there to supervise my brother. So, he would come up to my classroom to visit. I got to leave class and walk him down to where he was supposed to be. Although I acted frustrated, I secretly thought it was fantastic.

Throughout school, he was the yang to my ying. I never had detention or was suspended. He did both many times. One of my favorite times was on the school bus, and a kid sat on his lunch after my brother warned him there was a piece of birthday cake in the lunch, so don’t sit on it, and the kid plopped down as hard as he could. This kid was a bit of a bully and a year older, but my brother taught him a lesson and got suspended. The school sent my brother home on the school bus that day, and my Dad asked him, “Who won?” When my brother said, unblinkingly, that he had, it was the one time my brother didn’t get in as much trouble as always.

As you can see, we built a great foundation as kids. Our rooms were next to each other, and on Christmas Eve, we would sleep on our floors in sleeping bags and talk to each other through the vent. It is one of my favorite memories with him.

As we have grown, even though we don’t have the closeness I had imagined when my mother told me I was about to get a sibling, I know he is always someone I can count on, and I hope he feels the same way. He has been there to catch me when I fell, has helped me move multiple times, and has always opened his home to spend time with his daughters.

I don’t come from a super demonstrative family; we don’t say I love you a lot, hug, or even tell each other we miss each other, even though we are all a distance from each other. But I know he would be there for me in a minute, and I hope he knows the same. So even though we don’t say it often, let me tell the world.

I am grateful you are my brother, and I love you!!!

Signed your big sister, who will always be there for you!

First, let me let you know I am not 50. I still have about 80 or so days before I hit that milestone. This milestone feels different than any of the “0” ages previously. I shall now explain as this is a blog and not a sentence posting.

10- Woohoo, finally in the double digits. I remember my Aunt Luci telling me it would be another 90 years before I got to add another digit to my age. Hence, although no one seems to recognize turning ten as a momentous age, she assured me it was my first age-related milestone. That day, I learned that birthdays are not just to celebrate who you are as a person each year; it is also about how far you have come. Since that day, I have seen birthdays differently and wondered what they had in store for me.

20-Okay, this one was a weird kind of a bummer. I am in my 20’s, yet still not old enough to partake (legally, at least) in spirits. There was the thrill that I felt of finally being taken seriously. I mean, I was no longer in my teens. I was a married Army wife working 2 jobs and attending school full time. Life was mine for the taking, and I couldn’t wait to dive in. A new chapter was starting; I was free to create and become the woman I was meant to be. Dang, it, I had the world by the short and curlies, and life was good.

30-Okay, the ’20s were rough. I had two jobs because I needed both to live a somewhat enjoyable life. If I wanted to be able to come home for visits, by myself the occasional treat, and be able to care for my aging cats, I had to work. A lot. And I was now the dreaded 30. I wasn’t young anymore. There was a common saying, “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” and here I was. I didn’t feel the 30 I remember my mother and friend’s mothers reaching when we were in elementary school. I had no children and couldn’t imagine taking care of multiple kids like so many of the other Army wives I was friends with. I started dreading 30 when I was 28. I went into a year-long quasi-depression at the big 3-0. After 25, when my car insurance rates started decreasing, I didn’t see any reason to want another birthday. Can’t I just stay 30 forever?

40-Okay, this one stung like a hornet. 35 was the last “I am finally old enough” age, and that was to become president. Holy cow, I was old enough to be entrusted with the entirety of the US of A. Did I think I was prepared? Heck no. I mean, I had been divorced at 31, lived by myself back in my hometown of Baltimore, MD, and now was in a relationship. I had three wonderful cats, and life seemed good(ish). Like when I was turning 30, I had a bad year, 38, where I was trying to make peace with such a huge milestone. By the time I hit 39, I had fun with being in my 30’s for one more year before the dreaded “40.” Turning 40 meant I was officially middle age, and all of my body systems would start the slow dying process, from my female organs to my collegian; I was a body that had turned the page and started dying. 40 was the horror I imagined it was when I was young.

50-Although not there yet, I know I am gonna love it. What has changed? Well, a lot. When I first turned 40, I had been through a rough ’30s. I imagined life would keep getting worse. I turned 40 with a job that gave me PTSD from such an aggressively abusive boss, living paycheck to paycheck, and just being in a constant funk. I hoped my 40’s would be different, and they were! I met my spouse when I was just about to turn 45. We have been madly in love since our first date. We bought a house. At 47, I became a first-time homeowner, and my house is one of the best in my new hometown in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire. Because of the size of my new hometown, everyone knows who I am and where my house is. In fact, when I got my car tags transferred, the town clerk said she drove past my car and was wondering when I would finally get the tags transferred. Life was the best it had ever been. I was still dreading 50, but hand in hand with my spouse and I was going to make it through. Then, the worst thing possible happened. I lost, very suddenly, one of my nieces. It was my mother’s first grandchild, my only sibling’s oldest, who died in a freak accident car crash. Next weekend is her Angelversary, and I will be traveling to her hometown of Dover, PA, to celebrate the wonderful person that was taken far too young.

So what does this all mean for me turning 50? I am embracing it. Growing old is a privilege denied to far too many. I have watched people I knew, people I have grown up with, slowly die off. It doesn’t matter how it happened, some by their own hand, some due to their own actions, some even due to disease and heart attacks. I am embracing the knowledge that I am “Old.” My wife is 370 days younger than me, so we have chosen the retirement date to retire together. Now, fans of my writing, I will never retire from writing; at least, I hope not. I mean, we will no longer have to go to work for “The Man.” I even have plans for my 50th. I am getting the Shingles vaccination. I am also joining AARP. The two milestones I was dreading, I am now looking forward to. I have embraced that my life is probably more than halfway completed. I have made my peace with that. I know that when I die, whether it is nothing or paradise or something in between, I have had a life that, although not easy, I still loved in the end. And isn’t that really what a successful life is all about?