birthdays

Flying Through The Air With The Greatest Of Ease

As most of you know, my birthday is kind of a big deal to me. I think everyone should get at least one day a year for things to be all about them. I celebrate me on my birthday, not my age. On that one day a year, I put myself first.

This past year, Max and I had to negotiate this issue. We were considering going to Las Vegas to see Rod Stewart for our autumn vacation. I told you a little bit about that adventure in last week’s blog. What I did not say was that, to maximize this trip, we would have to spend my birthday in airports flying home from Las Vegas. This certainly did not sound like an enticing way to spend my very own annual special celebration day. On the other hand, I did want to see Rod Stewart and the logistics were much simpler if we spent September 30^th traveling home.

We decided to pretend we were in some alternative universe where my birthday was actually September 29^th. I like to think I have improved with age (despite the protests of my body suggesting otherwise.) Maybe I have become so adaptable and so efficient, I have developed the ability to twist time. At any rate, I took the position that, for 2022, my birthday was September 29^th.

It was a fun-packed day, but things really took off, so to speak, when my friend Kathy and I went ziplining. Yes, ziplining.

I have done ziplining twice before this trip. My experiences were a mixed bag.

Once, I was in a leadership readiness program in Colorado. As part of the class, we spent a day at a ropes course. We each had to do three of a number of activities that involved heights, ropes, balance, and physical endurance. I guess the idea was to help us overcome fears and realize how powerful we could be. All around me, people seemed to be getting the message… or, at least, some version of the message. I heard one woman scream, as she jumped from a telephone pole, “If I can do this, I can do anything. Watch out, I can fire your ass!” I wasn’t really afraid. Heights have never particularly bothered me. Ziplining always looked like fun when I watched The Amazing Race on television. Any concerns I had were related not to heights, but to my physical ability to do certain things. Climbing a telephone pole, maneuvering myself into a standing position on the summit, and balancing on the top of the pole seemed improbable for someone who trips over lint.

I was not afraid, but I should have been. I was the class injury. After successfully completing two other ropes activities with little trepidation, it was my turn to zipline. The instructor fastened me into a harness, and I climbed up the ladder to a platform. I do not remember any warnings. I do remember thinking that the people on The Amazing Race sort of sat in their harnesses. At this ropes course, the rider stood and held a bar above her head. On the way down, I screamed. The people below thought I was scared. I was not scared. I was actually in excruciating pain. I am not sure what I did wrong, but I almost dislocated my shoulder. I spent the next several weeks consuming Aleve and admiring the rainbow bruise that extended from my left breast over my shoulder down my back to my waist. Luckily, there was a hospital across the street from the ropes course.

The next ziplining opportunity was at the San Diego Safari Park. I am not sure why I thought ziplining was a great idea after my first experience, but I did. We had a practice run on a short course, which was fine except for an extremely abrupt end to the ride. When I hit the brake position, the momentum threw my heels over my head. I had second thoughts, but decided “in for a penny, in for a pound.” I got in the truck and rode three miles up into the hills. I soared over the African veldt in Escondido, viewing antelope, zebra, and elephants from my seat in the sky. Because it was a longer route, the stop was more gradual, and my feet did not go flinging all akimbo. The whole experience was fantastic.

I decided I’d like to try ziplining over the Las Vegas Strip. Kathy enthusiastically embraced the idea at first but became a little anxious as the time for our ride grew closer. I say, “became a little anxious.” She says, “almost had a panic attack.” It did not stop her, however. Even though she kept asking everybody she saw about what the ride entailed, she did not turn back. When it was over, she thought it was one of her favorite things about the whole Las Vegas trip. I thought it was amazing. It was such a celebratory, powerful thing to do on my birthday (yes, yes, I know it wasn’t really “on my birthday” but please humor me.)

After our ride, we had my birthday dinner at In and Out Burger. This may sound a little anti-climatic, but I LOVE In and Out Burger. It is a deep source of disappointment for me that Florida does not have any In and Out Burgers. Whenever I am in California or Nevada, I gorge myself like I am storing up hamburgers and French fries for winter hibernation. I took a bite of my double meat plain hamburger, and I was in Hamburger Heaven.

I had more than enough to eat for dinner, but we had to have dessert… ‘cuz it was my birthday. My answer to “cake and ice cream” was sharing a brownie sundae with Max at Ghiradelli. All of this wonderfulness of a day while Hurricane Ian was raging his way around town at home.

Sometimes unbirthdays are the best birthdays of all!

How do you like to spend your birthday? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Terri/Dorry 🙂

Tomorrow, I turn 62 years old. It is my second birthday in the Land of Oblivion (otherwise known as the worldwide pandemic.) I cannot really complain. Both birthdays have occurred in COVID “cautiously optimistic” periods. Last year, we were beginning to find ways out of lockdown and back into some semblance of life outside the home. This year, though I live in Florida, which the media portrays as a swamp of COVID infections having a rave party, the peak of the deadly delta variant cases is behind us. The numbers of new cases are still significant, but they have been declining by about 25,000 each week for the past several weeks.

I was able to celebrate my birthday at the Magic Kingdom last year. It was an oddly empty Magic Kingdom because of substantial capacity limits. Still, it was even more exciting than usual because of the deprivation of the previous five months. Also, I enjoyed being able to amble and genuinely see things that I might have missed in the past because of crowds and momentum. My expectations were extremely low that day. I frequently found myself marveling and giggling in delight over the creative ways that Disney adapted to social distancing requirements so that the magic was still there. It was just quieter magic. I’m never one to complain about quiet.

This year, we are going to Disney Springs for my birthday. As it happens, Walt Disney World is also celebrating a birthday this week. Disney World will be 50 years old on October 1, 2021…the day after my birthday. I toyed with the idea of going to one of the parks but decided the magic might be a little too loud for me right in the belly of the beast. I decided instead to buy myself a 50^th anniversary magic band and have a nice dinner at the Springs.

Birthdays are big for me. Typically, I never put myself first. In fact, I put myself last. I don’t say this to sound like a saint or a martyr. I am not mad about it. In fact, it is a strategy that has worked well for me, for the most part. The problem is that when it doesn’t work, it really doesn’t work. I have some straight edge issues that tend to cut unbearably deep when my “put yourself last” strategy fails to hold them at bay. Right now, my brain is engaged in a battle royale about why this is so and what I can do about it. I do not intend to be mysterious. I am sure I will enlighten you further about the fascinating topic of the workings of my psyche in another blog post when I figure stuff out. For the time being, let us just say that I tend to put myself last in most situations and do not mind it.

My birthday is different, however. It is the one day of the year that I let it be all about me. In fact, I kind of insist it be all about me. I can be rather annoying about it. For many people, aging ceases to be a cause for celebration after retirement. I think growth is worth celebrating at any time. It has been critically important to me to continue to grow in retirement. Each year marks the completion of a twelve-month course on living life. I endeavor to read the textbooks, but also do the lab work so that I do feel like a birthday marks another year of a self-improvement. If I sometimes get a bit down over the aging process, I also celebrate my annual graduation to the next grade in the School of Life.

The other reason I value my yearly birthday celebration is even more important. Everyone is a unique person…” fearfully and wonderfully made,” as Psalm 139 tells us. If I am not celebrating another year of age, I can at least celebrate the wonder of my creation and the exquisite elegance of God’s plan. Even on the days when I do not see any wonder in my specific creation, I hold fast to the knowledge that God does. When I celebrate me on my birthday, I am celebrating, thanking, and glorifying my amazing Creator.

How do you celebrate your birthday? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can send me an email at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a happy birthday or happy un-birthday, as the case may be!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

Never Trust A Candle

Today is my birthday. I am 61 years old. Last year, I had a little emotional discomfort with the idea of turning 60. This advanced age disoriented me a bit. I never thought of myself as elderly before, even when I retired, but the 60^th birthday did mess with my sense of self. I found myself challenging my perception of reality.

Little did I know that my birthday disorientation was a precursor of things to come. My 61^st year was a mix of muddle and misadventure for me and for the whole world. There is no way I was wishing for a worldwide pandemic when I blew out the birthday candles last year. Hiding in my house with only minimal human contact was not what I had in mind. Learning to breathe through several layers of sweat-soaked cloth whenever I ventured outside was not on my list of #lifegoals@60. Cancelling a long-anticipated trip to New York City was not on my agenda for my 61^st year. Re-engaging with remote learning and virtual gatherings, after giving them up when I retired, was not something I would have ever imagined, much less desired. All in all, my 61^st year has done a lot of sucking.

On the other hand, it has not been all bad. Things seemed like they were going pretty well at the end of 2019- a trip to Las Vegas, a visit to California to see my brother and his family, a Christmastime getaway at Disney World with a first time (and, at this point, maybe my ONLY time) opportunity to go to the Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, and a growing enjoyment of my retirement life here in Florida were all great starts to my “over 60” life. I grew in friendship and fellowship with my new church. My relationships were all doing great. I had plans and excitedly looked forward to numerous new adventures.

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. My birthday candle must have fizzled out because my plans all went to hell in a handbasket.

This year, I am approaching my birthday celebration with cautious optimism. The celebration is kind of a moving target. When we had to cancel our New York City trip in May, we decided to go crazy and book a one-night stay in a premier room at Disney’s most luxurious resort, the Grand Floridian. We have visited there often, marveling at the water park area, the beautiful views of the Magic Kingdom, tales of the nightly water pageant in the bay in front of the hotel, and the cool dining options, including breakfast with Mary Poppins. We have never actually stayed overnight there because it is wildly expensive. Since we cancelled our even more wildly expensive trip to New York, we booked the Grand Floridian room as a consolation prize.

As time passed, it became increasingly clear that the pandemic-tempered Grand Floridian experience would be significantly lacking in cool factor. Disney was allowing limited access to the resort, so the fancy room we booked was not going to be available. There would be no fireworks or water pageant to view. Character meals were cancelled. The lovely up-scale dinner house is still closed. The water park area is still open, and the Disney people offered us a villa instead of the fancy schmancy room we booked. Still, for the money it was going to cost, I felt like any whittling down of the experience meant we should just cancel. Sadly, I cancelled that trip at the end of August.

Last year, we spent my birthday at the Magic Kingdom, participating in a behind the scenes tour. I had always wanted to experience the tour and my 60^th birthday seemed a good time to empty that particular item from my bucket list. This year, there are no tours running and we 86ed our overnight splurge stay at the Grand Floridian, but we are again going to spend the day at the Magic Kingdom with friends. It will be a more laid-back day than we originally imagined, but I am sure we will all enjoy it. We have dinner reservations for Raglan Road at Disney Springs, which is another place I have wanted to try for a long time.

So, all in all, I am sure it will be a good birthday. At least, I am hoping it will be. One thing that the pandemic has taught me is that it is often better to live in the moment and to enjoy what is, without too many pre-expectations. I think many of us have spent too much energy over these past seven months or so trying to plan around the world-wide circumstances. We have been holding our collective breath, waiting for circumstances to change and for the lives we have planned to come together.

I think I am just now deciding that I would rather change my life to accommodate the worldwide circumstances than wait for the worldwide circumstances to change to continue living my life. The life I live, just like my birthday celebration, may not end up being what I expect or completely the experience I would choose to have, but there is something to be said for embracing the sweetness of discovery!

Just a reminder that you can get my second book, Random (A)musings on Amazon. If you never ordered my first book, Changing My Mind: Reinventing Myself In Retirement, and would like a copy, please email me at terriretirement@gmail.com. It is out of print, but I do have some copies for sale. Come on, folks, throw me a bone! It’s my birthday! Make me happy and buy a book!

Have a happy birthday or happy un-birthday, as the case may be!

Terri/Dorry 😊

How Did I Ever Get To Be 60 And Other Mysteries Of The Universe

Do we call a group of flamingos a “flamboyance” because flamingos are such an effective demonstration of the quality we call “flamboyance” or do we have a quality called “flamboyance” based on the name for a group of flamingos? What came first… the flamingo or the flamboyance?

“Why does the English language not have gender-neutral third person singular pronouns? Isn’t it really irritating to have to keep saying or writing “he” or “she” and “him” and “her?” Wouldn’t it be so much easier to be able to use one pronoun? Since I am thinking it up, I think I should get to create the words. I propose the words “te” and “ter” in honor of… well, me.

How can a state claim to be in the middle of a drought when my feet are regularly died the color of my shoes because of the torrential rainstorms I must navigate to get from my car to the grocery store?

How did I ever get to be 60 years old?

Yes, I turned 60 the other day. I can’t believe it. I don’t feel 60. As much as I identify as Tinker Bell, I admit that there is some Peter Pan in me, too. I never really grow up. I guess that means I don’t really grow old, either. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I remember asking my father, thirty years ago, “How did I ever get to be 30?” He was less than sympathetic. He responded, “How do you think it feels to have a daughter who is 30?” Maybe it is partly because I do not have children aging in front of me that I lose perspective about the passage of time. I know it always jolts me into a cruel reality when I see kids I knew as youngsters “suddenly” graduating, getting married, or celebrating other such milestones. I gave a baby shower for a friend of mine not too long ago. That baby now has a graduate degree, is married, and has a baby of his own. Could it really be that “not too long ago” was actually the mid-eighties?

I have school pictures of my godson and his older brother on my wall. The pictures date from a time when you could articulate their ages with one digit. Heck, you barely needed two hands to count the number of years in their ages. I also have a family picture with them in it from around 2005. They were two combustible packages of energy throwing themselves into the job of growing up. I saw them a couple of years ago and they were both taller than I am. They don’t even look like the same people.

Do I look like the same person I was 15 years ago? I think I do. I look older, certainly, but I am sure you could pick me out of a lineup today if you met me in 2004. I probably don’t even look that different than I did when I was lamenting my 30^th year to my father. Older, wrinklier, and creakier, certainly. I don’t claim that the ravages of time have left me unaltered. The point is, I still look like the same person.

I feel like the same person, too. If anything, I have aged younger in the last few years. Free from the stressors of work and many of the expectations I used to impose on myself, I am much freer than I used to be. My heart is lighter and I am much less… well… fraught.

I hope to continue on my current anti-aging path for at least a few more years. I think I can fool my body into believing it is younger than it is. Some people try to turn back the hands of time with plastic surgery, trendy clothes, or social media picture filters. I do it by mind control. I celebrated my 60^th birthday at the Magic Kingdom. That has got to count for something!

Where did the time go? Do the years sneak up on you, too? Tell us about it! Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a mysterious day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

September 30th

I had an aunt who was born on New Year’s Day. One day, my mother and I were talking about her birthday and my mother commented that she thought it was sad that my aunt’s birthday always got a bit lost in all the holiday hoopla. I replied that I thought it would be neat to be a New Year’s baby. My mother looked at me strangely and said, “You kind of were.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked.

“Do the math,” she replied.

I was born on September 30, 1959. Apparently, my conception was the result of my parents’ private party to ring in the new year. Knowing this seems like too much information.

My birthday is pretty special to me. It is the one day of the year that I give myself license to let things be all about me. For people who see birthdays as a reminder that they are aging, I can see how it can be tempting to forget the whole thing. I psyche myself out of the birthday/aging correlation by scrambling my thinking. I’m celebrating my 30^th anniversary of turning 29 this year. Anyway, I don’t really think birthdays are about marking the number of years in my life. They are about celebrating the unique (all right, weird) conglomeration of attributes, accomplishments, and activities that makes up the wonder that is me. After all, when we celebrate George Washington’s birthday, we aren’t celebrating how old he is. We are celebrating his existence and contribution. I may not be the founder of a nation, but I am the founder of my life. I’m pretty proud of that life.

Last year, my birthday was marked by disorientation and distraction. Coming a few short weeks after my mother’s death, I was still oversaturated with emotion. I was just starting to learn to live in a new world without my mother. I had not really even begun to craft a life that did not include being with her, caring for her, and being mothered by her. I was definitely living gingerly on the fringes of a life, trying to avoid the cracks in the landscape that fractured my old existence during her long illness. I had not begun to repair those cracks. I had not yet patched over the cracks so I could transverse them in the journey of my own life. I was just trying to stay away from the edges so I did not fall into them.

For the first time in my life, I dreaded my birthday last year. I was sure it was going to be a difficult reminder of the other person who was around when I was born 58 years earlier. Instead, it turned out to be a pretty good day. Max made it his mission to indulge me. Even though he always does what he can to make me happy, he made a concerted effort to kick it up a notch on my first birthday after my mother died. He took me to Disney Springs. We shopped and walked and enjoyed a beautiful day. As we wandered around, a beautiful pair of earrings caught my eye in a store window. Max bought them for me, as a spontaneous birthday surprise. “Spontaneous” and “surprise” are not words that typically describe Max, but he was trying everything he could think of to delight me. We had dinner at one of the restaurants specializing in comfort food. We didn’t forget my mother, certainly, but I have to say that the plan for the day was to distract myself from my grief. The plan was pretty successful, all in all.

My strategy of distraction didn’t end with my birthday. For months after my mother’s death, I seemed to be engaging in an endless stream of activity. I joined clubs, volunteered, published a book, began seeing friends regularly, and kept myself busy, busy, busy. Part of my busy-ness stemmed from a genuine desire to expand my life, but I’m sure that a lot of my motivation came from my need to fill the space in my heart that my mother left when she passed. It wasn’t necessarily intentional, but I know I was trying to not feel the ugly disorder of my grief.

My super-sized activity schedule was not necessarily satisfying at first. I was happy to fill my time with something other than sadness, but I didn’t feel particularly connected to the activities. I went through the motions and ticked off the time without grief. I felt pretty triumphant that I kept functioning and wasn’t falling apart. Some of the new endeavors felt successful and others did not. I purposely tried not to make any commitments beyond a few weeks because I felt so alien to everything I was doing and nothing felt momentum-producing. Everything was just something to do to occupy my brain for the moment.

At some point in the months that followed, I noticed that all the activities began to feel more cohesive. They were starting to feel like a part of my life, rather than some life I was just visiting to escape from reality. At some point, activity matured into meaning. I had built a bigger life without even realizing I was doing it. I was still sad, of course, but I could allow myself to feel sad without worrying that I was going to sink into a dark place from which I would not be able to recover. I felt less bereft of a mother and much more aware that I still had a mother living in me and encouraging me from Heaven to grow towards my joy.

I don’t know how it happened. I can’t describe the process or technique of learning to live with grief and joy simultaneously. I am pretty certain I have not yet mastered the skill completely, but I know that I feel calmer and more peaceful. My busyness did turn out to be an instrument of healing, although I was not the one using the instrument. God used my distraction to lead me to where I needed to be. It seems that the distractions I employed to deal with my disorientation primed some part of my personal mechanics to ignite my brain, open my heart, and send my soul searching for a more sumptuous sense of spirituality. All that disconnection and hollowness in my busyness of last year has ripened into a richer, fuller, life.

If my birthday last year was marked by distraction, I think the watchword this year is engagement. I’m reveling in all the new activities and situations I’ve experienced over the past year. I’m celebrating the journey of life instead of being afraid of it. I’m also doing something I’ve always wanted to do for my birthday this year. Max and I are going on a bus tour to New England. I’ve always wanted to go see that part of the country and peep at the autumn leaves.

So I think I’ve turned a corner in my grief. Well, maybe not anything as sharp and definitive as a corner…. But I have definitely made a “slight right turn,” as the GPS calls it when you are approaching a gentle fork in the road and need to veer one way or another. I do believe I am veering right. And I think my mother is happy about it.

What will you be celebrating on your next birthday? What life achievements, personal progress, or happy events will you remember with joy? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a joyful day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

REMEMBER: You can order your copy of Changing My Mind: Reinventing Myself In Retirement by visiting: https://secure.mybookorders.com/orderpage/2076

Happy Birthday To Me

A few weeks after my mother died, I had a birthday. Birthdays have always been special to me. My birthday is the only day in the whole year that I allow everything to be all about me. Long ago, I stopped looking at my birthday as a commemoration of another year passing. Instead, I look at it as a kind of holiday. It’s Terri Day- the day the world (or at least any portion of the world that so desires) celebrates the unique wonder that is me! That may sound conceited, but it isn’t really. I don’t limit my birthday philosophy to myself. I think everybody’s birthday should be about celebrating that person’s individual, special awesomeness. What difference does it really make if you are another year older, when all is said and done? On the other hand, what a wonderful difference it truly does make that the world is filled with awesome people who are amazing for so many different reasons!

I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel celebratory when, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sharing my birthday with the woman who birthed me. I say that my birthday has always been “all about me.” That isn’t entirely accurate. Part of that “all” has been all about my mother and me. That very first birthday was the beginning of the very special bond we’ve shared over the past 58 years. I’ve always bought my mother a present on my birthday. After all, my mother was the one who did all the work the day I was born. All I did was show up.

I almost felt like skipping my birthday this year, but my current obsession with busy-ness and distraction forced me to find something special to do that day. Max and I returned from a trip to Las Vegas on September 28 and we visited Disney Springs to celebrate my birthday on September 30. Now, normally, I would not visit Disney Springs on a Saturday when hordes of people walk the earth, but I was pretty committed to celebrating on the actual anniversary of my birth. Max made a few half-hearted attempts to convince me to juggle my birthday celebration to another, non-weekend day. He soon realized that idea was a total non-starter. He ultimately embraced the idea and set out to ensure I enjoyed a special birthday- different from all previous birthdays because my mother wasn’t with us, but special in a new way.

For several days before, during, and after my birthday, Max walked around calling me the “birt-day girl.” He greeted me every morning by calling out, “Happy Birthday.” He sang to me on the gondola at the Venetian Casino during our vacation, which was amazing. Max doesn’t really sing and lives in terror of standing out of the crowd in public. Yet, there he was, singing to me. Without benefit of alcohol, even. The fact that he was singing to me in front of a gondolier and a couple of strangers and anyone who happened to be able to hear him in the fake Piazza San Marco truly demonstrated the extent of his effort to delight me. It touched me deeply and I think I found a way, after knowing him for almost 22 years, to fall even more in love with him.

A few months ago, part of me realized that my mother was likely not going to be alive when my birthday came. I purchased a necklace and paid for it from one of her accounts. I gave it to Max to save so I’d have one last birthday present from my mother. The morning of my birthday, he brought it out and fastened it around my neck. The necklace is a diamond and silver butterfly. The body of the butterfly consists of two interwoven open-heart designs. I chose the butterfly motif because it reminds me that my mother, like a butterfly, is reborn to live in beauty and joy in Heaven. I chose the double open heart design because my mother is the one who taught me to live my life striving to love and to be loved.

When we got to Disney Springs, we went to Starbucks and had a beverage accompanied by a pumpkin scone. As we walked around the shops, I found a pair of earrings that fascinated me. Max surprised me by buying them for me. We had a late lunch at a restaurant I’ve been wanting to try. My mother used to keep a stash of what she called her “hidey hole” money- about $400 in cash that she kept at home in case of emergency. I took some of that money to pay for my birthday meal and the Sprinkles cupcake I bought to take home. Later that evening at home, I put a candle in the cupcake and Max sang “Happy Birthday” to me.

I also received beautiful cards, texts, and gifts from my brother and from friends all around the world. It was as if the Universe knew that this was going to be a tough birthday for me and wanted to provide a little additional emotional padding against the buffeting my heart was likely to take.

You can see I ended up having a lovely birthday, even though I was kind of dreading it. It was a special day, even if my mother wasn’t there to share it with me. Then again, maybe she was. And maybe she always will be.

How do you like to celebrate your birthday? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have an extra special day, whether it happens to be your birthday or not!

Terri 🙂