retirement lifestyle blog – Page 3 – Terri LaBonte- Reinventing Myself in Retirement

Wild Or Mild? Part 1

Recently, we took a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. With uncharacteristically excellent timing, we managed to plan the trip between two tantruming hurricanes. I was driving from our home in central Florida to our ultimate destination- a distance of over six hundred miles, each way. Previously, the furthest I’d ever driven was about 380 miles to Charleston. I had some trepidation about upping my motoring game that much. I know plenty of people who regularly make 600-mile trips in one day, but I ain’t one of them. To be honest, I was not convinced that I would even have the stamina to do two back-to-back driving days of three hundred miles each, but I told myself to get a grip, put on my big girl panties, and embrace the wheel. After all, God made cruise control for a reason. As a sop to my anxiety, I did decide to stop overnight in Macon, Georgia instead of driving the whole distance in one day.

At the beginning of the trip, I began to think that I had become an adventurer in my old age. I felt super comfortable the first day driving. I was puffed and chuffed about my performance. I felt very peppy and full of myself when we pulled into the Homewood Suites for our overnight respite. I was really feeling my oats. I felt confident enough to suggest to Max that we might be able to cancel our overnight hotel reservation on the way back, but I wanted to see how I felt after Driving Day Two.

Waiting until after Driving Day Two to make that decision was one of my wiser moves. The next day was much more difficult. As we inched our way through Atlanta traffic, I found out that fifty miles of northern Georgia is not equivalent to fifty miles of northern Florida. Time, as well as the traffic, stood still. Just when things started flowing more rapidly, we were exiting the freeway to approach Sevierville, where we were staying.

I should have been suspicious. The owners of the Airbnb we were renting told us that the house was about six miles from Dollywood and six miles from Gatlinburg. That information did seem to coincide with what Mapquest and the GPS (why only rely on a belt when you can have BOTH a belt and suspenders?) were showing me. However, the GPS was saying it was going to take half an hour to get to the property. This turned out to be accurate. The traffic on the main drag from the freeway to the turn-off to our house sludged its way across the miles even slower than the traffic in Atlanta. I could not believe the number of cars and the number of pedestrians walking along the Parkway.

The slow traffic did give me sufficient time to really take in the sights on the Parkway. How would I describe the scenery in Pigeon Forge? The first word that comes to mind for me is tacky. Not that tacky is necessarily a terrible thing in my book- my favorite color is glitter, and I leave a little pixie dust wherever I go. The Parkway was overstimulating even for me, though.

There was a smorgasbord of souvenir shops, restaurants, miniature golf courses, mountain coaster parks, more souvenir shops, escape rooms, bars, ice cream parlors, and even more souvenir shops. Oh, and did I mention souvenir shops? The souvenir shops touted “hand-crafted” Smoky Mountains products. I later discovered that the products might have been “hand-crafted,” but that crafting was done in China. The mention of “Smoky Mountain products” apparently referred only to the fact that they had “Smoky Mountains” printed on them.

The buildings stood shoulder-to-shoulder like people standing in an overcrowded elevator. It even felt like the buildings were hunching their shoulders to avoid touching each other, so aware of the lack of personal space. They were huge, painted in bright colors that had faded over time and weather. Much of the architecture was campy and bizarre. Every building was clearly competing to catch the eye. One souvenir shop had a huge alligator covering the middle third of the façade. That alligator was as wide as my entire house. It wasn’t even just painted on- the front of the building was molded into the shape of the alligator. I did not even know they had alligators in Tennessee. Another building had a huge bear, roughly equivalent to the height of the building, spouting from the roof. There was a large wax museum that included a building in the shape of a castle bigger than any Disney royal residence. The main building was shaped like the Empire State Building, complete with King Kong hanging on its side. That King Kong sculpture had to be four stories tall.

As we turned off the Parkway, the roads got narrower and curvier. Thankfully, they also got less populated. As we meandered into the outskirts of the city, I began wondering if we were on the right track because there was not much around except trees. Max began to express concern emphatically that we were out in the boondocks and were overly isolated.

As we reached the last mile of our trek, the concern level elevated. As did the road. I knew I was renting a “mountain cabin,” but I guess I didn’t realize just how much of a mountain I was getting. After living in Florida- the flattest state in the union- for nearly ten years, I’ve apparently forgotten what mountains really look like. I’ve also forgotten what the “roads” up the mountains feel like. I navigated one hairpin turn after another up a steep 2-way road that was only wide enough for about one and a quarter cars. There were no guard rails on either side, so a misstep would mean plunging to our death in the valley below or ramming into the wall of a mountain.

One of the reasons I chose this location is that it sounded like it was part of a community, which felt safer than being out in the wilderness completely alone. The cottage was part of a community, but there were only three or four houses built together before the road curved off into some new curlicue. Even once we located the community, finding our cottage was a challenge. Part of that challenge involved making several wrong guesses. This required driving up multiple blind steep hills and some death-defying U-turns. It also required me to drive in Reverse, which is always death-defying in my case.

When we finally got to the house, I was tired, hungry, anxious, and felt like there was a steel bar between my shoulders. I was also pretty testy. The house was very nice, though. The view was lovely. It was cozy and quiet. There were a couple of neighbors, which made the drive seem less terrifying. After all, if the neighbors could navigate that road on a regular basis, surely I could do it for a few days.

My adventure in the Smoky Mountains certainly started in the “wild” category. Between changing lanes on the freeway through Atlanta without having any idea of what lane I needed to be in, traveling through the Pigeon Forge fever dream of a landscape, and navigating the mini-road up to the cottage, I felt quite the thrill-seeker. I even ventured out back into town to get some dinner, which necessitated coming back up that mountain after dark. The mild part? We cancelled any thought we had of evening entertainment on this vacation. After making that trip in the dark, I decided discretion is the better part of valor. Besides, what is a vacation without several hours of YouTube videos each evening?

Have an adventurous day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

What is the most adventurous trip you have ever taken? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Terri Years

You know how they say that one dog year equals seven human years? I understand that this axiom is not particularly accurate. Calculating a dog’s aging process is more complicated than that. It seems, with a dog, a year is not a year is not a year. Some years are more equal than others.

I think the same is true with humans. At least, it is for me. I am not talking about the various and sundry health issues that seem to jump out from behind a curtain and gobble me up rather than nibble away at me gradually over time. If I am honest, those health matters do creep up over time. The only thing sudden about them is my sudden inability to live in denial about them. The more striking example of some years being more aging than other, seems to be my appearance.

Now, most of you know that I have never been any great shakes to look at. The one good thing I could say about my appearance is that I floated through year after year without seeming to change much. I probably spent 15-20 years looking almost exactly the same. We sometimes look at old pictures and it is difficult to date them by my appearance. If we look at old Thanksgiving photos, there is really no way to tell if we are looking at Terri 2002 or Terri 2012. In the last three years, though, I’d say that aging has been making up for lost time. The last year, especially, seems to have been hard on my constitution. I just compared some recent pictures to ones from the same event last year. I am now depressed.

I noticed a year or so ago that my jawline was starting to sink. And, believe me, I cannot afford to give up any space between my face and my shoulders. My father always called me the neckless wonder, given the fact that my chin nearly touched my boobs even when I was young. Now, it is a complete mystery whether or not I do have any neck at all because I have sagging jowls. My skin used to be oily and acne prone, but at least it glowed. It is now a peculiar shade of dull. I never used to have dark circles under my eyes. I now look like I am wearing glasses even when I am not wearing glasses. I don’t even have bags anymore. The indentations under my eyes are now twin steamer trunks. I could be sailing to Europe on the QEII with this much luggage. My hair looks even more tired than I feel. The grey roots seem to appear overnight about two and a half weeks after a trip to salon. It grows out, rather than down. As I have tried to embrace my curls, I find myself looking increasingly like a brunette Bozo the Clown… or like there is a family of cats living on my head somewhere in the chaos.

Maybe I am just having a bad self-image day. Maybe I am just overcritical of my appearance. It wouldn’t be the first time. Even given that I can be somewhat delusional about my looks- or at least some people say so- I cannot help but believe that some years age me faster than others.

I do want to be fair. I did have those 15-20 years of time standing kind of still. I suppose it was bound to catch up with me someday. I am grateful for the years of looking young. My self-image was no better in those days. In fact, it was a good deal worse. I am not sure I could have handled feeling ugly AND old all the time. Over the past several years, I have been working hard to rewire my brain. I can get through a day or a week or even a month without feeling ugly and repulsive. When I do feel ugly and repulsive, it is a mood or a moment, not a state of being.

Despite the progress I have made in seeing and appreciating myself as I actually am- physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually- my appearance has aged way more than one year in this past year. I accept that, presuming I don’t get run over by a bus, it is likely that I will encounter this phenomenon of “ultra-aging” more frequently in the next years. On the other hand, I am happier and more at peace than I ever have been in my life. I am gentler with myself and others. I am more comfortable living my life as it comes. I am more excited about growth. I am more trusting of God.

I guess I can put up with cheeks that are closer to my esophagus than my eyeballs, skin the color of old tissue paper, hair that looks like cats live in it, and luggage for a transatlantic voyage under my eyes if the pay-off is self-value and joy.

This is going to take some getting used to. In the meantime, I definitely think I am going to stop going anywhere near a camera without make-up!

Have a youthful day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Do you think that some years age you more than others? How do you come to terms with the changes age makes to your appearance? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Follow The Bouncing Birthday

I turned 65 on Monday. It didn’t suck.

Some of you know that this birthday was kicking me with a high wattage emotional jolt. Becoming officially “old” according to the United States government caused me to re-evaluate the ways I think about myself. I’m usually the youngest in the room. I’ve always had a rather child-like persona. I see myself as young. Clearly, by sending me a Medicare card, the United States government is suggesting that I might be delusional in that perception.

Well, I re-evaluated but have decided that the United States government is wrong in its perception of me, and I am right. I am me, with all my quirks and oddities, all my failures and frailties, all my childishness and hyper-responsibility, all my creativity and stability, and all my playfulness and wisdom. In short, I am the wildly wonderful, bizarre buffet of attributes that God combined with inscrutable intentionality to design who He wanted me to be. That design is ageless. In God’s time, I am young… and always will be.

My birthday celebrations certainly make a strong case that the number of years of my age does not define the youth of my soul.

Things started strong with a birthday box I received from my precious sister by selection in California, Judy. The box contained a variety of gifts that spoke to my value in the world. One of these small gifts that housed great value was a small sign that proclaimed that I have been loved for 65 years (and every variant possible of “65 years.”) Another was a little zippered pouch that proclaims that I have been making the world a better place since 1959. Such simple thoughts, but they packed such an emotional wallop. They forced me to tap into my spirit and find a place that values myself in these ways. It is wonderful that my Judy has these sentiments, and it is even more wonderful that she reminds me that I have them deep inside me, as well, and it is important to honor them.

I told you I had plans to visit a ranch called Beautiful Creatures Animal Sanctuary but was concerned that Hurricane Helene would dispose of those plans. Fortunately, the weather cooperated, and we spent a FABULOUS day with Candice at the ranch. I fed Dolly the sloth. I took the mini-horse Casper for a walk. I played with Betty the porcupine. Mountjac deer Prongs and Clary gave me kisses. I gave toddler kangaroo Hopper his bottle. I served dead meal worms to rambunctious lemurs. I wrapped myself in a corn snake. I hugged a hedgehog. I fell in love with a French bulldog puppy named Hiram. His custodians referred to him as “Darryl,” but I have it directly from him that his name is Hiram. There was so much more that I could say. This brief paragraph can’t even begin to describe the surprises and delights!

Candice, one of the owners of the ranch and our guide for the day, was another reason my experience was so joyful. She made me feel so special. It is not like me to take precedence over other people. I like being generous and doing things for other people. It is very unlike me to “go first” or be the one to ask for an opportunity if it means someone else won’t get one. Candice went out of her way to make the day all about me. She made it extremely easy for me to be “selfish” on my special day. Maya Angelou said that “People will forget what you do, but they will always remember how you made them feel.” Candice made me feel awesome.

On Sunday, my friend and pastor preached a sermon that seemed to be especially for me. It was one of those sermons that bore some careful holes into my heart so God could reach me at a deeper level than usual. It felt like a warm, encouraging validation of worth. I am not so self-absorbed to think that the sermon was all about me. I am sure it spoke to many others in the pews as well. I don’t even know that I entered into the inspiration phase of the sermon, but I am so thankful that I could receive it in the way that I did.

On Sunday and Monday, friends and family showered me with birthday wishes. One friend stopped by with flowers and a balloon. On Monday morning, I slept until 9:00am. Since I usually crave sleep the way a crack addict craves cocaine, this was a fantastic way to start my actual birthday. When Max gave me my card, he commented, “I am so happy you are the love of my life.” My heart just melted like the ice cream with the birthday cake that someone left on the counter.

Much to his relief (he has been trying to get me to open gifts for months now), I finally broke into the presents. I was delighted because I had forgotten every single one of them. Max tends to buy my presents at random times during the year and only when I am around to concur with his choices. This means that there is often a backlog of gifts. If the backlog gets long enough, I forget what we chose. It is a win-win scenario. Max does not need to stress about perhaps buying something I won’t like, and I get a surprise because my memory is not that long.

Max and I went to Orlando for a birthday dinner at BJ’s Brewhouse, which was delicious. Finally, just when I thought the birthday was basically over, the doorbell rang. When my mother was alive, I used to buy her a gift every year on my birthday. I figured she did all the work. All I did was show up. This year, this very special birthday, I ordered a floral arrangement of white roses (my mother’s favorite flower) and pale peachy pink roses (my favorite flower. It is a fitting celebration of both of us and the path that she set us on 65 years ago.

On Tuesday, there was a bit more bounce left in the birthday ball. At our Alpha course session, there was birthday cake and ice cream to celebrate me and my dear friend who partners with me in producing Alpha. Her birthday is today, so please everyone repeat after me….”HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABS!”

I don’t know how a girl could feel anything but loved and valued and joyful with family (by birth and selection) and friends like mine. I am a very, very blessed lady.

Please remind me of this the next time I fall into a pit of darkness!

Have a celebratory day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

What is your favorite birthday memory? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Sog And Sag

It is late September, and this summer is slinking by like a sloth stuck in saran wrap. I am tired of it. Granted, I was tired of it in May. At least in May, I could tell myself that the miserableness of the atmosphere was simply summer and would pass in time. I have reached that point in the sog season now where I firmly believe I will never be cool again. For the rest of my natural life (which may end in a tragic air-drowning accident), my body will continue to stick to every surface imaginable. A layer of sweat and humidity will glue every random object that I touch to my body. I don’t feel comfortable. I don’t feel clean. I don’t feel cute. Actually, most of the time, I feel disgusting. And it is never going to end. Don’t try to talk me out of it. I know this is a permanent condition.

Friends of mine spent part of this summer in Scandinavia. They kept posting pictures of the Arctic Circle, reindeer, huskie farms, and people wearing long pants and sweaters. Personally, I think it is sadistic. I was in possession of her plants, watering them while she was away. They required three or four kettles of water a day to keep them upright. All those pictures of frost-friendly Scandinavia caused me to contemplate plant-icide in retaliation.

The Florida summer rain is getting to me, too. Usually, it rains heavily for a fairly short time period each day, maybe a couple of times a day. However, it is also hurricane season. When I first moved to Florida, I learned that it can rain any day of the year in Florida and sometimes it does. I finally got to the point where I did not despair and suddenly change plans when a forecast several days in the future called for rain. First, those forecasts for a “future” beyond three hours from now are completely unreliable. … Just because tomorrow’s forecast says it will rain, one shouldn’t contemplate changing plans. It is very likely that, when one checks the weather by hour the next morning, there is a good chance rain will no longer be part of the mix- and, if it is, it will likely be pretty self-contained in a one-hour block of time.

This year has been different, however. We have had activities rain out because the weather did not cooperate. In fact, that is why I am writing a second summer rant about the weather. Normally, I limit myself to one whiny post a year about how annoyingly oppressive and completely bizarre the weather is in Florida. This year, however, something has happened that really must be addressed.

My birthday. Of course, I have one every year, but this September 30^th is my 65^th birthday. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this one seems fairly momentous. One could argue that, along with the 18^th and 21^st birthday, 65 is one of the most significant milestone birthdays in a person’s life. Many people retire at 65. Medicare kicks in at 65, suggesting that the United States government proclaims one officially “elderly” at 65. Typically, I have always been the youngest in my friend group and in the workplace. Even though I retired nearly 10 years ago, I have been able to avoid thinking of myself as “old” because of context. Most of the people I knew were older. However, that is changing. Every year, there is a new influx of people newly retiring into my community from points north. There is no doubt about it. There are now numerous people around me who are younger than I am. That, along with the United States of America seal of approval on my “elderly” status, has sent my brain careening into “old” with all the subtlety and finesse of electroshock therapy.

Anticipating that this was going to be a tough transition for me and also wanting to celebrate myself on this landmark day, I have been thinking for months about what to do to mark the occasion. I particularly planned vacation around my birthday this year. The past couple of years, we have been traveling to or from a vacation on my actual birthday. I wanted 65 to be special and I wanted to focus all my energy on my birthday on celebrating me. I had several ideas, but nothing was really singing my name. Finally, I found something that had me written all over it. I planned a trip to an animal sanctuary ranch about an hour away from home. As part of the experience, I planned to interact with a sloth, pet a hedgehog, and take a miniature horse for a walk. There was a catch. The owners were planning to be out of town beginning on my actual birthday. If I wanted to do all the elements of the experience, I would have to visit on the Saturday before my birthday. This was not my ideal plan, but I finally decided to do it.

Our visit is planned for this Saturday. Yesterday, the governor of Florida declared a state of emergency because of Hurricane Helene’s approach. She is expected to make landfall on Thursday. The storm is extremely slow-moving and may still be raging on Saturday. Even if Helene has passed by Saturday, it is likely that she will leave a wide field of damage in her wake. It seems more than likely that I will not be slothing or hedgehogging or mini horsing around on Saturday. And I blame Florida weather for this travesty.

Of course, this is not a giant problem. I am blessed that Helene will probably not cause much damage in my neighborhood (knock on wood) and safety is the main thing in a hurricane. It seems very callous to even complain about my birthday celebration when people will be afraid for their lives. Even people in Helene’s path who are physically safe will be way more inconvenienced than I will be. Losing power is a bit more tragic than losing the opportunity to walk a miniature horse. I am still sad that the storm may keep me from having the birthday celebration I planned. And really peeved at the weather. I mean, is it not enough that I am turning “old and saggy?” Do I really have to be soggy, too?

Have a storm-free day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Have you ever had your plans for a “special” birthday derailed? How did you end up celebrating? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Still Employable- Although Maybe Just Barely

A couple of years after I retired, I published a blog post called Employable (Employable – Terri LaBonte- Reinventing Myself in Retirement.) I discussed what it felt like for someone to offer me a job at that point in my life. I sorted through a great quantity of feelings related to the offer, but my bottom-line response was that I didn’t want a job- even though it was nice to be asked. I had not considered starting a new career in retirement before the job offer. I certainly have not considered it since then.

Recently, a situation arose at church that involved a major re-juggling of administrative staff. Our parish administrator of nearly a decade planned to retire in mid-September. I initially agreed to help in the office one day a week to reduce the strain on our parish ecosystem while we transitioned to a new office organization. There were a few of us who were teaming up to cover basic processes for a couple of months. As the situation unfolded, however, increased complications bombarded the well-intentioned plan, demanding a more permanent and cohesive solution.

The church’s administrator (secretary/financial systems manager) semi-retired a few months ago. In her semi-retired status, she was concentrating solely on the financial systems. The parish hired a part-time secretary a couple of months before the church administrator was due to change to her part-time schedule. Unfortunately, as soon as the administrator officially started coming into the office only two days a week, the newly hired part-time secretary resigned.

Our parish administrator agreed to return to a full-time schedule while we found a new person to take on the entire full-time parish administrator job. We did find someone, but she had some pre-existing commitments that would limit her availability during part of the transition time. Our retiring administrator devised a plan to transfer skills in both the secretarial and financial administrator arenas between June and September. This succession plan also involved training me so that there would be at least one other person with a pulse who knew the mysteries of the church’s financial software.

I love plans at least as much as the next person. There are those who would argue that I take planning to an absurd degree. However, I also have my own little motto- “Terri proposes, and God disposes.” Such was the case with this transition plan. Despite our best efforts, there were a series of disastrous events that caused the plan to crumble beneath its own weight :

The retiring administrator fell and smashed her elbow into a million pieces, requiring extensive surgery.
As soon as the retiring administrator recovered from her surgery, her husband was hospitalized with COVID.
One of the stalworth volunteers who had been helping to keep the train on track went on a boating trip and got stranded in the middle of some body of water somewhere due to mechanical problems.
The rector was on vacation.
The photocopier possessed (or is possessed by) some sort of evil, vindictive genius. It stopped working for nearly an entire week- probably in protest against the excessive number of revisions of the Sunday service bulletin documents that we copied the week before because we kept finding errors. It turns out that cutting and pasting changes into five or six separate documents is not as easy as you would think.
I learned that my eyes are spoiled by the 27” computer monitor we have at home. The 23” monitors in the church office are just not cutting it for me, especially as I sit behind the new hire and try to coach her through different processes.
The retiring parish administrator, overwhelmed by trying to keep the parish office operational, train new workers, and care for her husband, suddenly declared she was moving her “retirement full stop” date up by a month. Instead of disentangling herself from us in mid-September, she decided to leave in mid-August.
Certain key passwords retired along with our outgoing administrator. One especially important system required that I get a new password through snail mail. I am glad our government is concerned about protecting privacy, but this particular system has the clunkiest password parameters I have ever encountered. .

During this period of limbo, I tried to use what I learned in the approximately 7 hours of training the original administrator was able to give me on the financial workings of the parish before destroying her elbow. It made me nervous when people kept saying, “Terri knows the financial stuff.” Terri knew the foam, not the root beer. My claim to fame was that I was putting money in the bank and paying bills. Beyond that, I was uncomfortably aware of the limited depth of my knowledge. People kept telling me, “At least you are getting something done- anything you are able to do is better than nothing.” I am not so sure that is true. After 30+ years working in a financial-related field, I am all too aware that a person can easily know just enough to be dangerous.

As time has passed and I have had the opportunity to complete the routine financial operations several times I feel much more hopeful. The retiring parish administrator was able to come back to work for a few weeks after her surgery rehab, so I was able to reality check some of the things I did in her absence. Despite my misgivings, I had not done anything lethal to my church’s financial system. The original administrator was able to resolve the hanging chads of work I had left over from the prior couple of weeks. I managed to expand the number of hours I was in the office while she was still working so I could sop up every last bit of knowledge from her brain cells. Learning from her tutelage increased my feelings of accomplishment and confidence.

When the retiring parish administrator was in the office, I did not get involved with the Sunday service documents. This was probably a huge relief to everyone involved, I know it was a huge relief to me. I was even able to take a day off and go to the beach with a friend. I called from a beach cabana to see how things were going and if they needed me to come in and help the next day. In my book, if I am calling from a beach cabana, things are good. They told me all was well and there was no need for me to come in the next day.

I think I needed to “act my wage.” My wage is 10 times more than most volunteers. However, 10 times 0 is still 0. That would imply that I should be investing $0 in worrying about or taking responsibility for any of this. Still… it is hard for me not to give my all. Predictably, it is also hard for me to give my all and not reserve anything for myself. When a friend texted me on Friday night to report that the bulletin did not reflect the correct person giving the sermon, I wish I had been able to react with more understanding, urgency, and courtesy than I did. Sadly, I may have “acted my wage” during that encounter.

Now that our former parish administrator is officially retired, the new hire and I have been on our own. I am continuing to train the new hire in the financial administration duties. This has often been of dubious benefit since I was only about a half step ahead of her in knowledge. I found myself confusing her because I still had so many missteps. I took a week or so to just do the work so that I could more clearly direct her. It is truly a case of the “partially sighted leading the blind.” That axiom takes on a whole new meaning when the “partially sighted” person is trying to read tiny print on a tiny screen from much further away than her eyes can accommodate. We spent half an hour of mucking about yesterday because the field I thought said “date” actually said “deposit.”

Despite the struggles of the past few months, we are making great strides, and I am proud of our little administrative team. While I do not believe we have yet produced a perfect set of Sunday service documents, they are getting better each week. The new administrator is picking up the financial tasks with agility. A volunteer who has helped in the past with the secretarial part of the job has kindly offered to take over some of the work for a few days so that our new administrator can concentrate on solidifying her knowledge of the financial aspects of the job. We are all working well together. We treat each other patiently and kindly. We ask for grace as we learn, from each other and from our “customers”- the God and parishioners we serve. People are more important than perfect procedures. We pray a lot.

You may ask why I tangled myself up in all this. Is it my inability to say no that has expanded that “helping out one day a week” to 20-28 hours a week? I don’t think so. I believe that we have the right long-term solution for the future administration of our parish. The process of transitioning to a new office staff has been wracked with many unanticipated complications. With God’s help, we can resolve the complications and move forward. Because of that, I am willing to invest in the solution.

However, even if I am employable… I still don’t want a new job.

Did you take a new job in retirement? How has that been for you? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a productive day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

“Writing Blogs” Is Not The Same Thing As “Writing A Blog”

I expect that you are thinking that it has been uncharacteristically quiet in TerriLand recently. It is rare for me to go so long without new content. Truth be told, I am not sure that this really counts as “new content” either. It is more of a letter of apology or excuse… depending on how charitable you feel.

I try to make my blog posts relatable and genuinely honest. My goal is that the posts authentically demonstrate my real self and my thought processes. I believe my blog posts do reflect the state of my brain, which could be a very scary thought. Most of the time, the effort I put into examining what is on my mind and writing about it tends to resolve the general disorder and messiness of my interior world. Without this process, it would be much scarier to live inside my own head than it already is. By the time you read the blog post, I have pulled out that awful junk drawer inside my brain, carefully examined its contents, decided what to keep and what to throw away, and organized the remaining items. In my blog posts, I am able to show you the newly neat results of this effort to tidy my mind. Of course, just like with a junk drawer, my mind does not stay tidy for long, but my blog posts often reflect that one brief, shining moment in time when my brain does not look like the den of some demented squirrel.

Recently, though, I have not been able to declutter and organize my brain. There are so many ideas and analyses running amok in my gray matter and none of them will sit still long enough for examination. It is not writer’s block. I have no less than 5 blog posts in various stages of development. Problematically, “various stages” include “embryonic,” “infantile,” and “prepubescent.” None of these potential blog pieces are anywhere close to “adult.” It turns out that teasing around many blog posts doesn’t necessarily result in completing one publishable piece for the entertainment and edification of my readers- all three of them. Rather, the confusion in my brain that writing usually helps to order and inform is simply more cluttered with these bits and pieces of drivel. These wannabe blog posts are just more brain junk that needs to be moved out of the way when I am searching for something in there.

So while today’s post may not rise to the level of “content” and is certainly not my best work, there is an honesty about it. Today’s blog does authentically demonstrate my real self and my thought processes. It is just that recent life has fed my real life and thought processes lollipops for breakfast and then scrambled the whole mess up in a blender on “pulverize.”

Send help. Pray for me.

Have a clear-minded day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

What do you do when you know you need to slow dawn and calm down in order to gain perspective? Please share your ideas by leaving comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Recovered Memories

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently traveled to New York to visit my cousin Ray, his wife Fran, and his two young adult sons, Ben, and Ethan. I got to meet and spend time with Ethan’s girlfriend Deanna as a special bonus attraction. It was a wonderful time. We spent a lot of time enjoying fun activities together, talking, laughing, eating, and bonding. All that was amazing. I could not have asked for a better experience. My family were so generous with their time, love, and energy. What was even more amazing than this marathon of joviality, though, were the feelings that the experience evoked in me.

My family was so generous. It was not just a financial thing. They lavished time, energy, and love on me. I felt so protected and taken care of. I don’t know if they all really enjoyed being with me as much as they appeared to, but, if not, they pretended really well. I suppose it is possible that, once I left, they said to each other, “Thank God that is over,” but I don’t think so. It felt like a new chapter in each other’s lives for all of us. For me, the time felt saturated with preciousness. It is hard to even explain the bond. It was a bond that, in some ways, should not even exist because of distance in geography, time, and the busyness of life. I have always remained in contact with them, and we have shared some heavy and happy moments, but I have not always put in the intentional effort to earn the bond that I was happy to discover still exists.

In addition to creating memories during my time with them, I recovered some interesting memories. I remembered things I didn’t even know I knew.

I spent the first five years of my life in Deer Park, on Long Island. My parents did exactly what they were supposed to do when they had a baby. Within six weeks of my birth, they moved from an apartment in the Bronx to a house in the suburbs. We lived there until I was five years old, at which time we unexpectedly moved to California in conjunction with my father’s job transfer. You would not think I would remember much about my life in New York, but experiences and feelings came flooding back.

One evening, Ray drove me to Deer Park, the town where I spent those five years. I remembered street names; Carlls Path, Jefferson- they sounded familiar. I had some recollection of my address in Deer Park and the addresses of some family members. I did not get them exactly right, but I was not far off, and I absolutely remembered the houses when I saw them, sixty years of time and renovation later. As we drove down the streets, I knew what side of the street to look to find the houses for which we were searching. I remembered some specific events. For instance, I remembered some sort of celebration when my whole extended family was in our house. It might have been a birthday party. I remember laughter and a certain amount of chaos because of the number of over-sugared children. I remember jumping on the sofa and I remember my aunt giving me a silver dollar. It was the most bizarre feeling.

Even more, I remembered what it felt like to live in those houses. I could feel laughter, fun, community, connection, family, and stability. I think I somehow lost a lot of that mood memory over the years. After we moved to California, my nuclear family was a closed ecosystem. My mother, father, brother, and I were largely self-contained. We did not entertain. I don’t really remember my family having a social network. This was before the days of cell phones. In fact, long-distance calls on land lines were expensive and we only called New York a couple of times a year. There was no texting or Facebook. There were photos, but they were not of great quality and there was no way to share them except by sending prints in the mail. I do, of course, remember fun, happy times with lots of laughter in my family in California, but they were small and intimate. I think I may have lost any skill or comfort I had with social interaction that I learned early on in the context of a large extended family.

Just being with Ray and his family also highlighted that. Their house, yard, and garden felt familiar deep inside me, even though I had never been there. It felt like a life I used to have as a small child. With the six of us together, there was a different kind of energy- an incredibly positive energy- and I let it sweep me up into its vortex. Instead of avoiding it, as I would typically try to do, I wrapped myself in it and participated.

There was another experience I had, too. Ray reminds me so much of my father. Watching Ray with his young adult sons during my time with them, I heard things that I thought could have come from my father’s mouth. There was a lot of teasing and joking and some frustration. The thing is, I also heard patience, guidance, and true parenting. He was definitely cultivating his children. I think, when I look back at my memories of my father, I think I may not have absorbed the patience, pride, guidance, and true parenting. I think some of that was likely there, even though what resonates in the front of my memory of my father is more the joking, teasing, and frustration. Even if the patience, guidance, and true parenting were not there, I could see in Ray what my father wanted to be. I think Ray is simply better at implementation than my father was. I think seeing this dynamic in action helped me understand and appreciate my father. It helped me to rejoice in my father’s loving motivation instead of focusing on sometimes hurtful experiences.

I have one more observation about the trip down memory lane I took during my trip. The house I lived in for five years was up for sale. It was listed for $723,000. I know my parents spent less than $20,000 on that new construction home in 1959. That means the house has increased in value by nearly $11,000 per year. The house has certainly appreciated more than I have.

What memories do you have of your life as a child? Are you sometimes surprised by the things you remember, even after decades have passed? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a memorable day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Unplugged

I just returned from a trip to visit my cousin and his family in New York. I have many warm, loving thoughts and impressions about my time there, which I will share in upcoming weeks. It is a serendipity that I should bring home such beautiful memories, considering the way my trip began.

I drove myself to Orlando and left my car with the valet at the airport. I successfully wrangled my luggage, even attaching the bag tag correctly on my very first try. I waited in only one incorrect line. Once I released my suitcase into the care of the good people at JetBlue, I plodded my way through security and found my gate.

That is when disaster stuck. I fished around in my purse to get my cell phone to call Max and let him know I was safely at the airport. There was no cell phone in my purse. I tried my tote bag. There was no cell phone in my tote bag. It seemed likely that I had left my phone in the car. The awful truth dawned on me. I was unplugged.

At least, I was mostly unplugged. By some miraculous twist of fate, I had brought my laptop with me. However, I had no means of making calls or sending texts. I also had no access to phone numbers. I also could not take photos. Perhaps most galling was the fact that my phone houses my pedometer app, which records and acknowledges all the steps I walk in a day. If I am not carrying my phone, it is like all the exercise I do is nonexistent.

In fact, without a cell phone, it was like I was nonexistent. It was like I had unwittingly entered the witness relocation program.

I considered my options- one of which was to return home in defeat. It was too late to go back to the valet and search my car for the phone. I tried my laptop, thinking I could try email and Facebook to communicate with the world outside my brain, but I could not get Wi-Fi connection in the airport.

My most immediate dilemma was how to reach my cousin and his wife. They were picking me up at the airport and I was supposed to text them when I arrived so they would know I was at the terminal. Not only could I not text, but I also had no access to the proper phone numbers even if I could text.

I asked if there were any pay phones around in the airport, but these relics of antiquity have gone the way of Ozymandias. Next, I looked for one of those airport electronics mini stores. No luck. I went into a general merchandise store and asked if it was possible to buy a cheapie cell phone. The clerk sized me up and down before responding disdainfully that asking to buy a cell phone in an airport is highly sketchy. I guess I might as well have been wearing a sign saying, “I’m a terrorist.”

I decided I was going to need to get some help from some stranger with a phone. I was also hungry. Looking at the options, I decided the best place to rely on the kindness of strangers was at Chick-fil-a. I ordered breakfast and started to explain my dilemma. I had chosen wisely because it was the Chick-fil-a’s lady’s pleasure to loan me her phone. She was even fine with me carrying it off with me away from the counter. I called Max and got all the numbers I had written down for him for my cousin’s phones. I then tried calling all of the said numbers but had to leave messages. I also texted to explain what happened. I needed to ask them not to wait for my text to collect me but to come looking for me. I also needed them to know that it was only my phone and not I that was missing.

I got on the plane not knowing if my call for help reached my cousin. Once the plane was in the air, I was able to connect to the in-flight Wi-Fi, so I emailed, posted about my plight on Facebook, and pleaded with my cousin’s wife on Messenger to somehow find me in JFK airport.

I thought, if my cousin did not get my numerous non-phone-related messages, he would call the house phone and Max would advise of the problem. If worst came to worst, I could be like Tom Hanks in that movie, The Terminal, where his character ends up living at JFK for months. These musings were all pretty level-headed of me, given the circumstances, but I was pretty sure I was ultimately going to need to borrow someone else’s cell phone when I got to New York.

When the plane landed, I thought about my next steps. I decided I could either ask the lady sitting next to me if I could borrow her phone or I could wait until I got my suitcase and then ask some random stranger in New York City for this favor. I got up twice during the flight to let the lady next to me visit the restroom. I figured we were besties now. Or, if not besties, she owed me.

She was very gracious and helpful as we tried calling and texting all the possible phone numbers. We finally reached my cousin’s wife on the third try. They had seen my Messenger communication. My cousin was circling the airport (and might have to continue doing so for the hour it took me to get my suitcase) and his wife had conveniently planted herself right outside the carousel on which my suitcase eventually appeared.

Our first stop after the airport was at Best Buy to purchase a pay-as-you-go stupid phone. No access to the internet and, of course, no access to contacts. Basically, though, it allowed me to call my cousin, his wife, Max, and- most importantly- 911.

Once I found my family and had an emergency phone, I was much less anxious. I did mind being able to take good pictures. I did mind not being able to Google any little thing that crossed my mind. I did mind missing all the critical communications I was sure were languishing on my real cell phone, wherever it might be. Still, the absence of my smart phone did cause me to focus on the moment and be more present with my family. There was a certain liberation inherent in having severely limited ability to communicate with people who were not right in front of me. Being without pocket internet access quelled my tendency to problem-solve 24/7. I was able to release much of the worry and responsibility I shoulder for all problems- mine and everyone else’s.

During my trip, I managed to convince myself that the phone was going to be in the cupholder in my car. I could almost see it there. Often, if I have the phone in my pocket when I get in the car, it is uncomfortable, so I pull it out and put it in the cupholder. I have left it there at times in the past. By telling myself this little fairy tale, I avoided obsessing about the cost and tribulation I would need to incur if I could not locate the phone when I returned home.

The fairy tale dimmed a little in my mind when I got closer to reality, but I was still fairly sure the phone was going to be in the car. Just to be safe, I asked at the airport Information Desk about a “lost and found” desk before going to the valet stand. Unfortunately, the “lost and found” desk was closed but the nice lady explained how to file a claim online. I listened, but I was still counting on a eureka moment when I opened my car door.

You can imagine my heartbreak when I opened the door and did not see my cell phone. I looked between the seats, in the backseat, even in the glove compartment. No cell phone. I could feel the despondency I had been pushing away all week come rushing back like the water when that little Dutch kid took his finger out of the dike. For the first time in this whole debacle, I felt heavy with defeat. I was mourning.

When I arrived home, I melted into Max’s arms and let him absorb some of my disappointment. I tried to be philosophical. In the grand scheme of things, people deal with a lot worse problems every day. My cell phone was old, beat-up, and probably in need of replacement anyway. I could recreate most of my contacts from other sources. However, I was looking at a depressingly long list of tasks that would be necessary to patch together some semblance of my administrative life. No matter how much I tried to give myself a pep talk, there was no denying that recreating my digital existence was going to be a pain in the patoot. And the photos. All the photos I had on that phone would be gone forever.

I took a sleeping pill and went to bed, hoping that things would seem more surmountable in the morning.

The next day, I pulled a bottle of tea out of the backseat of my car. When I moved that bottle, I thought I caught a glimpse of something vaguely phone-shaped pushed far under the driver’s seat. I could not be sure. A dead, black-screened cell phone on a black carpet under a black leather seat is pretty effectively camouflaged. I took my trusty high-powered flashlight and found that, sure enough, my cell phone was pushed far under the seat. Using the control to move the seat back and forward, plus some interesting gymnastic moves, I was able to grab the phone. It spent the whole day in time-out with its troublesome butt in the charger.

The smart phone is once again surgically attached to me. I have my photos and my contacts. I can Google and search IMBD to my heart’s delight. My music library is available whenever I feel a dance break coming on. Walking steps has meaning once more. Yes, I did reap some benefits from going six unplugged days in terms of living in the moment and being more engaged with the people physically with me. However, I learned that being unplugged is a lot more complicated than it would seem. . People always say, “what did we do in the days before smart phones?” Suffered. That’s what we did.

Have you ever tried to unplug from technology? How did it go? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a plugged in day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

ALPHA In A Good Way

My church, St. James Episcopal Church at 204 N. Lee St. in Leesburg, FL, 34748, is offering a free ALPHA course starting on August 6^th. An ALPHA course is an opportunity to grapple with the bigger questions of life and faith in a fun, nonthreatening, nonjudgmental environment. ALPHA was originally designed for people who would not necessarily identify as churchgoers, but we find that it is equally valuable to ANYONE who wants to feel closer to God and His Church. ALPHA is an 11-week course, meeting from 6:00-8:00pm on Tuesday evenings in the parish hall. It also includes one Saturday retreat day. Each session includes a shared meal, a video about some aspect of Christian belief, and small group discussions. Our guests find open conversations, during which they are encouraged to share as much or as little as they wish about their perspectives, questions, doubts, and experiences.

I have been helping to coordinate the ALPHA program for several years. When I started with the program, I had no idea what I was getting into, to be honest. God has stretched me and supported me and shown me a small glimpse of His power. He has used this opportunity to help me learn to trust His plan over my own. This is a lesson that I am sure I will have to keep learning for the rest of my life, but my work with ALPHA has been the most significant factor in this aspect of my spiritual development. I have experienced many other growth spurts related to my work with ALPHA, also.

I’ve also witnessed other people grow in faith and joy during the program. We call our participants “guests” rather than “students” because we are truly all students. One of our guests told me that, even though she had been a faithful, obedient, God-worshipping Christian for as long as she could remember, ALPHA was the first time she ever understood that God loved her. I saw young men, climbing their way out of dark, disastrous living situations, find a foothold with God and a community that is helping them step into the light. I watched people who had let God go because of what people have done in God’s name slowly and cautiously come back home to Him. I’ve met sturdy, faith-filled elderly people whose souls house a treasure of spiritual love and steadfastness. These people, some of whom mourned because they believed they were no longer useful, have been absolute rock stars in sharing faith. In the process, they have been able to grow even closer to God and His people, as well.

Sometimes, we look at religious conversions and spiritual experiences as a lightening strike. One perfect moment when the electricity and passion of faith hits someone with a certain overwhelming, momentous power. Sometimes it is like that. In my observations of nearly 65 years of spiritual searching, I find religious conversions and spiritual experiences are more often soft and gentle. They creep over us and cozy us, like a warm blanket on a cold night after a tough day. There are “aha!” moments in ALPHA, but there are so many more “aaaaah” moments. I love “aaaaah” moments. I am privileged to be present when people have them… or even when they simply open themselves up to them.

Our ALPHA courses get fantastic feedback. Our guests enjoy the fellowship and focus of faith formation. In a noisy, busy, secular culture that runs on the energy of secular values, it is sometimes a relief to step away for a dedicated time to intentionally focus on the Kingdom values. I call ALPHA a “search party”- a “party” because we are all hanging out together and having fun and “search” because we are all seeking something.

When we start a course, we never know where the guests will be on their spiritual development paths. We never know what people will need. We never know how to do it. We never know how to slant a course- towards the unchurched or towards those who have strong faith. The most important thing we don’t know is that we never know what is going to happen. I always say that my job is simply to turn on the lights and open the door. The rest is up to the Holy Spirit. She has not let me down yet. Something wonderful ALWAYS happens. I tell people, “Come and see.” (John 1:46)

In our last ALPHA course, we did have one interesting bit of constructive criticism. One guest questioned the name of the class. He came to the course with a societal understanding of the word “Alpha.” He understood it as meaning dominant, perhaps bullying, and toxic… like the terms “alpha dog” or “alpha male.” This, of course, is not the Kingdom understanding of “ALPHA.” ALPHA does not mean best or dominating in our lexicon. ALPHA means “the first.” The ALPHA course is a first step for many people in developing their relationship with God. Even if it is not the first step a person ever took towards a relationship with God, an ALPHA course can usher in a new season of “firsts” of spiritual development for a guest…. And for ALPHA team members.

If you are anywhere in the Leesburg area, please do consider joining us for ALPHA. It is a lot of fun, in addition to being an opportunity to explore the big issues of life and faith. Please contact me at terriretirement@gmail.com if you would like more information. I also have a brochure that includes snippets of perspectives from some of our past guests.

Have a blessed day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Where Exactly Is “The Sticks”?

The town where I live could not be called a thriving metropolis by any standard. In fact, I tend to think of it as a “small town.” I am not sure that is entirely accurate. Approximately 29,000 people live in MyTown, which spans forty-two square miles. We have multiple grocery stores, banks, chain restaurants, and many traffic lights. We have a Walmart, although the locals often refer to it as “the bad Walmart,” to distinguish it from the four or five other Walmarts within easy driving distance. We even have a “mall.” It is pretty lame, dilapidated, and unpopulated, but it is there. If the Belk department store ever leaves, I think it is fair to say, “there goes the neighborhood.”

While most citizens of the world would not say that MyTown is “small,” my perspective comes from living in Southern California. The relatively small town in which I resided in California housed over 86,000 people- in only about seventeen square miles. My California town was in the midst of an urban sprawl area from the northernmost tip of Los Angeles County to the San Diego County border. It was difficult to tell where one official town stopped and another started. In my current locale, there are certainly towns that abut each other. However, the significantly lower overall number of people rule out the idea of “urban sprawl.” When I lived in Southern California, there was an average of 5060 people living on every square mile. In MyTown, Florida- only 690 people live on each square mile. The feeling is quite different.

Many of the longtime residents in my area see the population growth much more clearly than I do. They grew up when there were more orange trees than people thriving in our 41.94 square miles. To them, MyTown now seems like a city. They see traffic and crime and modernity encroaching. I get it. We left Southern California for many of the same reasons. On the other hand, perspective is everything.

Green was pretty much just a color in a crayon box to me until I moved to Florida. Now, I look out of my window at a beautiful greenspace, complete with wildlife. The developers of the subdivision purposely left it as a conservation zone so I should be able to go my entire remaining life without seeing construction behind me. In the nearly 10 years I have lived here, I have seen sandhill cranes, woodpeckers, cardinals, other unidentifiable (at least by me) birds, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, bobcats, a jaguarundi, alligators, a couple of different types of snakes, a blanket of baby frogs, and lizards as ubiquitous as paper towels… all on my own property. As I drive around town, especially in the summer after the snowbirds have left for cooler climes, I see lakes and canals everywhere. I remember my mother used to want to go to the “little bakery in the woods.” This bakery is situated on a major highway. Its neighbors were largely subdivisions. However, all the structures in the area are still somehow part of the “woods.”

It is not just the flora and fauna that I find so “small town” enchanting. The pace is slower, and the people are largely kinder than in my California town. Most people seem to hunker down in their homes, with their families, and enjoy simpler, purer kinds of recreational pursuits. My experience of life is more “out of the house.” My adventures, while certainly not wild and crazy, are a source of amusement and amazement for my Florida friends. I love my little house and I love my downtime in it, but my growing up paradigm was that “life happens outside the house.” Home was pretty much a place for sleeping. I still tend to “out and about” way more than I stay home and “cozy in.” We spend a lot of time Disneyizing, which most people my age without children would find odd. Beyond the Disney parks, I seek out new and different and offbeat ways of enjoying leisure activities. I love my life and my Florida friends seem to love sharing my life from the coziness of their own homes. And I am finding the pleasure of a life lived largely at home, too. Especially when that home has air conditioning.

So, I often wonder whether I really live in a small town or not. Do I live in the sticks or am I just marking time until the pile of sticks is used to build enough subdivisions to qualify us for the kind of urban sprawl I left in California? I hope not. When we moved here, I wanted to live in a town small enough to be easier living but large enough to have services, shopping, and artificial amusements within reasonable commuting distance. I think we did a pretty good job of meeting that goal. I do not think I want too much unfettered growth.

I think it is only realistic to anticipate some level of growth over the years. I think it is a good thing when a community thrives in population and vibrancy, especially if the growth is well-managed. I saw something the other day that made me more secure that we have a ways to go before I have to worry too much about excessive growth. My friends and I went to a small independent restaurant for brunch after church a couple of weeks ago. I took the photo below to demonstrate that it looks like I currently live in a one-horse town… and, in the summer, even that one horse snowbirds north!

Have a great growing day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

Do you prefer a small town or a larger city? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.