Wednesday, December 21, 2011

A Chaotic and Cluttered Birthday Blog

Today is my birthday. Hooray for me! I'm now 54, and that is just fine because at this age I finally see the world with a clarity that eluded me for decades. 

For too many years I believed the world was responsible for revealing its secrets to me, being accountable to my every wish, yielding to my whims. So imagine the number of times the world snickered in amusement as I flopped and floundered and tantrumed in the most frantic and dramatic of ways, until I finally discovered that no one was really interested in my angst.

After turning 50, I woke up and learned to live with chaos and clutter - to actually revel in it when needed. And it is a good thing I did, because most days I can be heard exclaiming "All hell done broke loose now."

My husband of 22 years and I are parents to an amazing son, who is spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. Love the Monkey dearly, of course, but we indulged his every whim and he now believes, as I did in my youth, that the world is his personal oyster. Nature or nurture? Does it matter?

Guiding our Monkey through high school, and a recently-completed first semester in college, required mad skills in deep breathing and Earth Mother calmness. I mastered neither, and often backslid into tantrums. But no one on the planet is as disinterested in a mother's angst as a teenager. So I turned to grown up tactics, seizing car keys and cutting off bank account funds. Subsequent blog posts may detail why these were really, really bad ideas. Eventually, I simply told my son that if he got arrested, he was not to call me because as far as I was concerned, he could rot in jail if he used bad judgment. So far, this has worked. The Monkey's character seems in tact, and that's a good thing because he will need his moral compass as he flops and flounders his way in the world. He can trust me about this. I speak from experience.

2011 was the year from hell. Yeah, all hell done broke loose. After a 30 year career, I retired in April. A chronic and progressive health condition forced my exit. And I have not looked back. Not once. No need to. You may or may not hear more about that later. Retirement is not necessarily a bad thing, except that early retirement means you go from a mega salary to, well, not so much. And all the Suze Orman planning in the world doesn't soften the blow. Send that blonde to me and I'll enlighten her about the realities of financial planning in the post-2008 economy. 



We were doing fine, though, and settled into a suburban family life with visuals worthy of Good Housekeeping and Redbook. Not quite Martha Stewart or Southern Living, but holding our own. I didn't bake cookies or anything, but I actually had time to plan meals eight hours in advance and pay the electric bill before disconnection. Believe me; this was a milestone. Given the demands of my previous career, which involved extensive travel, I barely had time to go to the bathroom before retirement. 


Coasting along, finding a new family balance, my husband was then unexpectantly diagnosed in November with Stage III colon cancer. All hell done broke loose. Our days are now spent shuffling from one medical appointment to another. My life partner has been reduced to a pin cushion and I am his file-toting health advocate. Believe me; it takes two to maneuver the medical system.

Oh, don't worry. We are optimistic about his future, and some cool things happened this year as well. 



Thanks to social networking and retirement, I am finally getting to know my extended family members. Who knew I had such amazing relatives? And I have a to-die-for circle of gal pals who love eating as much as I do, which breaks my bank account but ensures I am satiated in comfort food when needed.

My son is happy and healthy, my husband and I are more in sync than ever, and we wake each morning thankful for one more day, one more opportunity to live our lives one day at a time.

And my writing. Cathartic beyond belief. Thanks to my editor and the encouragement of loyal readers who understand chaotic and cluttered lives, I have an apparently successful column called Family Matters, published each Monday on woodstock.patch.com. Each week I write about the things that matter to my family and, hopefully, families everywhere. Our current challenges, our lessons learned -our many foibles as parents, spouses, careerists, and clutter-proned people who do the best we can, every day, one day at a time. 



As I launch this new blog, I invite you to be a part of the dialogue. At this time, I envision the posts to match the tone of my Patch pieces, but they may be a bit more casual. Who knows? I may rant or throw a tantrum or two. After all, it is my blog, my angst, my hell that done broke loose.  


So read the posts and let me know if they resonate. Share the pieces with your friends. Help me spread the word that chaos and clutter prevail, so we might as well lean in. 

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