When I first started writing this blog, my life was in transition. I was leaving the world of aviation (my career home for more than two decades) and moving into the world of  insurance and financial services sales.

That didn’t go well.

For months, I worked my posterior off. I did everything I was told I had to do to be successful. I networked at five to six events a week. I held meetings – sometimes up to five a day. I gave illustrations. I explained policies. And I sold nothing. The more I learned about life, disability and long-term care insurance, the more passionate I became about it. Yet, I was unable to translate that passion into sales. Many told me that I was “just the kind of person (they) wanted to buy insurance from,” but  no one did. Ten months after I started, I was basically broke, broken, defeated and angry.

Very angry.

Like I do, I thought about my anger. I turned it over in my hands, examining it from every angle, trying to find its core. Recently, someone else crystallized it for me. I am angry because I planned and I worked hard, believing that I would be rewarded for those things with a comfortable middle age. I was knowledgeable, trustworthy and good at my various jobs. I thought that success would necessarily follow. Often, I’m learning, it doesn’t work that way. In fact, a recruiter recently told me to remove the C suite and VP titles from my resume since they make me sound over-qualified. He also suggested that, if I was at least a six on an attractiveness scale of ten, I should submit my resume in person at various facilities. To say the least, I was disappointed in his advice.

In the end, I find myself now middle-aged and starting literally from square one.  Since October, I have been working at a local warehousing facility. The work is physically demanding and very different from anything I had hoped to be doing. However, the organization is a good one and the more I learn, the interesting a future there becomes.

I often read motivational posts and memes quoting Zig Ziglar and, frankly, I’m about sick of most of them.

• Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success.
• If you can dream it, you can achieve it.
• You are at the top when: You have made friends with your past, are focused on the present and are optimistic about your future.
• Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

The truth is that I’m not very optimistic by nature. (This surprises many.) By nature, I am not a positive thinker and faced with the adversities of the last several months, I haven’t been a positive thinker in action, either. It’s tougher than a meme makes it sound. Sure, Zig, I was “designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.”  How is that going to put gas in my car this week or food on my table?

When I am in the grip of fear, negativity, and failure, it is difficult (if not impossible) to raise my head high enough to see down the road. Sometimes, I don’t need to hear about my innate greatness, I need to hear that I can survive today and that my daily survival is good enough.  Sometimes, I’m more inspired by “one day at a time” than I am by “you can rule the world.” Then, after awhile of healing, I’m ready to start sowing those seeds of greatness again.

So, my friend, if you are like me and need to take it “one day at a time,” take my hand and we’ll do it together. If you’re sowing the seeds of greatness, then hold out a hand to the rest of us until we are, too.

“I’ve got a dead bobcat in my freezer.”

One Easter morning, over eggs Benedict, my dad just threw this statement out there. It was apropos of nothing. There was no segue. He just launched this thing.  The statement was met with silence, then incredulity, then hilarity.  We came to call those kinds of statements Conversation Grenades. You just toss one out there, wait for it, then Boom! enjoy the aftermath. (In this case, it turned out that he had found the bobcat on a road where it had been killed by a vehicle. It would make perfect sense for him to have it if you knew my dad.)

A few times in recent weeks, I’ve been in situations where others politely inquired, “How are you?” My reply is something vague and innocuous because there are those who would be gleeful at my struggles over the past 18 months. They would appear to commiserate, but would gather later to gloat. I know they would and, maybe I would deserve it a little. But, since I had no interest in watching the Goblin joy of these members of the Schadenfreude family, I smiled, nodded and said I was fine.

But, just once, it would have been kind of fun to lob a conversation grenade, just sit back and watch. Don’t you think?

When someone who doesn’t really care inquires about your condition, wouldn’t you like to give them a shocking answer just to see what they’d do?

“How are you?”

• Back on the pipe, but what can you do, right?
• Suicidal and bankrupt, thanks, and you?
• Well, the voices are back, but at least I’m never lonely!
• Super excited my case was dismissed!

Of course, we can’t do all that. We have to be polite (except in therapy) or things will grind to a complete stand still, if just from the shock alone. We have to say that we’re fine or something vaguely positive, right? No one wants to hear the other stuff.

Well, most don’t, anyway.

I was reminded by a friend who once let me down in a MAJOR way, that there are people in our lives who do care. Sometimes they screw up and let us down, but, as he said, they can learn. They may not know how to help or how to spot a crisis unless we tell them, but we should never mistake their inability to see the problem with an unwillingness to help. These are the people who will deal with our grenades.

They might fumble with them a bit at first, but eventually, they’ll get control. They will comfort us or help us while we deal with the issues. We just have to let them. We have to expose our vulnerabilities, our soft underbellies to them.

But sometimes that’s the hardest part.

U.S. Navy admiral and University of Texas, Austin, alumnus William H. McRaven gave the recent commencement speech in Austin. His words are inspiring for graduates and, well, really anyone with a pulse. Here’s what the warrior had to say:

I may have to watch this daily…..all but that “hook ’em, horns” stuff.

I was working on another piece, but my sweet friend Jennifer shared this on Facebook yesterday. The video has wiggled into my brain and may be changing my perspective.

We’ll discuss tomorrow.

A few years ago, I read a book called The Holographic Universe that made my head hurt. I need to read it about ten more times to really understand it. It’s about the holographic theory and I’m no physicist; however, there is a concept discussed in the book that I did understand and that we experience regularly. I certainly did last week – synchronicity.

We call it coincidence – I’m thinking of a particular old song and, without my mentioning it, you start singing it or I hear it on the radio, that sort of thing.

On Monday of last week, a friend marked the tenth anniversary of his father’s death from cancer saying how much he loves and misses his dad, their talks and just being together. Joe’s words describing his feelings reminded me of the Sandra Bullock movie Hope Floats.

Then, on Friday, I saw a list of Sandy’s best and worst movies. On the best list was The Proposal (yes), The Blind Side (of course) and Demolition Man (are you kidding me?). On the worst list were Speed 2 (I’m sure), Practical Magic (what?) and, you guessed it, Hope Floats (no way – if for Harry Connick Jr’s scrumptious self alone!).

In the movie, Birdie and her mother have a complicated, often conflicted relationship. Still, they clearly love each other as is illustrated when Birdie is dressing for her mother’s funeral. She walks into the closet, catches her mother’s scent on the clothing and, grown woman that she is, sobs like a baby.

Now, in case you didn’t know, I have a weird thing about smell. I once couldn’t date a man because he smelled wrong – not bad, just wrong. (Pheromones, I guess.) I used to try to swipe my dad’s handkerchiefs so that I could carry his comforting smell with me. And when I see my son after a long separation, the first thing I do after hugging him is to smell his hair. It’s just something I do.

Anyway, because I do this weird thing, that scene struck me hard the first time I saw it and it still gets me every time. My relationship with my mother was also complicated and conflicted. She was not my best friend; but, she was my mother and we loved each other. Cancer took her just over eleven years ago. No closet contains her scent anymore.

If we are lucky, we have relationships the losses of which we can mourn. Imagine losing a parent or friend and not feeling the hole they left in your life. It is our choice to both love and like others that makes them precious to us and makes us feel their loss acutely. Joe clearly had such a relationship with his father. I had that with my friends Joey and Sandy whom I still miss every day. And, there’s my mom.

The smell of my mother may be gone; but, if it’s not and if I should ever encounter it again, I will know it instantly and, grown woman that I am, will sob like a baby.

As I go along my daily life, most moments are fairly calm and predictable. People say ugly things to and about me (I rarely pay any attention) and people say nice things to and about me (I give 100 reasons why they’re mistaken). In the struggle that is daily life, though, sometimes those negative things do get through and, along with other circumstances, put me on the ropes. The positive things lift me off them. Every great now and then, someone says something so nice to me that I am both lifted up and knocked for a loop.

My son did it once at age six.

The man who has grown into the godling Jaegar, son of Brodin, God of Swole, was once a little boy whose most hated thing in the world was to throw up. I mean, this kid would rather take a beating than vomit. It was a real issue with him. When riding in the car one day in Latrobe, from the backseat, I hear, “Mom, would you rather throw up or just feel like you were going to throw up?” I said I’d rather just do it and get it over with. He said, “Not me! I’d rather just feel like it.” Several seconds went by. Then he said, “Mom, if I had to to save you, I’d throw up for a whole year.”

Simultaneously the sweetest and grossest compliment I’ve ever gotten.

But, what I heard was, “I love you enough to face my most dreaded monster for you.” What an incredibly precious moment for me as a mother. I was knocked for a loop, speechless.

I had a similar moment last week at work. I greeted a bunch of young coworkers in my usual, goofy way when one of them said, “Miss Jon Anne, you make me wish that you were my mom.”

Wow.

What I heard was, “Of all the people I know that I could chose to be my personal protector and source of unconditional love, I would chose you.” What an incredibly humbling compliment! Again, I was knocked winding.

I know people who say that their goal is to become the person their dog already thinks they are. My dogs think I’m nuts and can’t decide whether their names are Trey and Ellie or Old Man and Pretty Girl or Dammit and Hush. I am the source of food and scratches, but I don’t believe they think I’m all that.

My son, this young woman and others during the course of my life have paid me compliments that I (knowing all too well my short-comings and failures) don’t believe I deserve. Those people and their beliefs in me make me try harder to be the person they think I am, not the small, petty person I often am in my heart. They make me want to treat others in a loving, respectful and accepting way, even when I want to scream and pinch their heads off.

Nah, it’s not my dogs that make me want to be a better person. It’s my son, it’s this young woman, my family, my friends and their convictions that I already am a better person. That’s what pulls me off the ropes, puts me back in the ring and keeps me slugging it out with my baser nature.

Their faith humbles me, sends me reeling but keeps me fighting – especially when it knocks me for a loop.

Before I get into what I really want to say, let me say this: for months, I published five pieces a week and loved doing it. However, writing that much is a lot of work and I just cannot do it these days. I don’t have the energy. Still, I love writing and (even more) love hearing from you all; so, I have decided to write weekly on Mondays and Thursdays. From time to time (like today) I’ll throw something else in just because it’s on my mind; but, I commit to writing at least on those two days of the week to give the site more predictability.

Now, on with the show……….

A few years ago, my dad and I were discussing age and what it feels like. I marveled that 40 just didn’t feel like I thought it would. He chuckled and said that neither did 72! He had expected to be in a rocker on the front porch yelling at neighborhood kids to get off the lawn. Instead, he was out fighting forest fires and slinging a chainsaw removing downed trees from roads.

Most of my coworkers are significantly younger than I am – in fact, I’m old enough to be the mother of many of them. However, because we perform the same job and because I don’t know them in any other age context (like a friend of my son), I forget that I am not their contemporary. I was reminded last night.

A credit to her mother, one coworker called me “ma’am” about five times in the space of as many minutes. I wanted to choke her. Finally, I said, “Call me “ma’am” one more time. I wantcha to.”  She laughed and said that she was just being respectful. I get that and, like I said, she’s a credit to her mother. However, with each iteration, I felt myself becoming more stooped and stiff. I’m pretty sure I even sprouted a few grey hairs. (Thank goodness for Miss Clairol! We are TIGHT, I tell ya.)

Another coworker was ragging on my elevated energy at having heard Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way” just before exiting the car. “It was a good song, like, ten years ago,” he said. I guess that made the song classic rock and me an old fossil. Grrrr.

I thought I would be this Having It All Together Woman at this age, but I’m not. I don’t. And, honestly, I don’t think all that many of us do. I think that we do the best we can with what we have every single day. We hope that our decisions are right and we learn from them when they are not.

I think I have a clue as to why over 40s are reluctant to give their exact ages. If I say, “46” I’m afraid you hear, “nearly 50.” And there is a part of even me that still thinks of 50 as old even though I know it isn’t. My body, my mind and my emotions are certainly much different than they were when I was younger; however, in large part, my spirit still feels about 25. It dreams. It appreciates beauty. It laughs at the absurd. And it grieves when it feels hurt.

Age hasn’t changed my spirit the way I thought it would. Maybe, if they live long enough, these children will realize that, too. However, if they keep on with the “ma’ams” and ragging on Lenny, they may not make it.

Last week, I shared with you some of my thoughts on suicide from a fatigue point of view and from a mental illness point of view. As I was discussing the pieces with a coworker, I mentioned that I have been directly involved with or one person removed from more people who have committed suicide than I have who have died from car wrecks AND cancer. My coworker (and fellow Cat Person) said that, in contrast, he knew no one who had killed themselves. Huh. How about that?

I know that he believes what he told me; but, I think it’s really more a matter of how you define suicide.

If you go with the single, catastrophic act, then maybe he doesn’t know anyone who has committed self-murder; however, given the broader definition that we discussed back in August, I’ll bet he does.

In August, I shared some statistics with you on obesity in the United States and, frankly, the rates still blow my mind. In 1960, some 13% of us were obese (having a BMI of 30 – 34.99). Today, 35% of us are. That percentage hasn’t changed much in the past couple of years; but, before we get all excited and break out the celebratory sundaes, let’s look at morbid obesity rates (having a BMI of greater than 35). Those were at only 1.4% in 1980. Today, that rate is at 6.3%, a 350% increase. I’ve lumped the super-morbidly obese in with that same group. They were not unheard of 50 years ago, but we didn’t see them every day at the mall, either.

Health issues are the obverse of the obesity coin, just as they are for the tobacco coin. If you smoke, you’re more likely to get certain cancers, certain circulatory diseases, etc. If you are obese, the same things are true. The names of the cancers and circulatory diseases may be different, but the effect is the same – continue to smoke (chew, whatever) or remain obese and you’re more likely to die of a completely preventable disease.

If you willfully engage in an activity that will lead to your death – either immediately or in a few years – that’s suicide in my book.

Now, let me back up and remind you that I am a nicotine addict, non-smoking smoker. I smoked for the better part of 20 years and up to two packs a day. As I told another coworker last week when he remarked that I was “fat” in an old photo, I wasn’t “fat.” I was obese – likely morbidly obese, I’ve just never run the numbers. My purpose is not to condemn. I’ve been there, right on that ledge.

Many years ago, my friend Lance – who is as about as subtle as a Howitzer (one of the reasons I adore him) – told me that I was killing myself but that I was doing it the long way. He was right. I knew it at the time, but I was at a place in my life when passive suicide sounded like an okay idea to me, really. It doesn’t anymore.

So, my friend, I’m asking you to look at your feet. Are you standing on a ledge? If you are, good news! You’re still standing! That means you can take my hand and come back down. Let’s stay off the ledge together.