January 2020 – Terri LaBonte- Reinventing Myself in Retirement

Resolute

The older I get, the more certain I get that it is unwise to be too certain of much of anything.

Sure, there are a few precepts that I hold very dear and I am certain of my commitment to them. For instance, I am certain of my faith in Jesus. I am certain that it is important to be kind. I am certain that it is critical to have integrity. I am certain that love is more powerful than hate and both are more powerful than indifference. I am much less certain of what exactly these abstract precepts will look like in any given set of concrete circumstances. I’ve given up taking stands about what I should/would/could do in any situation that I have not yet encountered. I just don’t have the imagination or the energy for it. Besides, I think that there are probably enough people in the world who live by absolutes. I don’t need to be one of them.

I can remember, when I was younger, I used to have a much firmer grasp on the “right thing.” I was often shocked by the actions of people I knew. I had a picture in my head of how “good” people behaved. Sadly, I judged people by that warped window into their souls. I didn’t allow for the possibility that my picture was much narrower than reality. I also didn’t take into consideration that cracks, repairs, scratches, and scars over time can distort the view through the window.

I find I get more tolerant as I get older. I have never been sure about this “getting wiser with age” stuff, but I do think there is a certain amount of wisdom in becoming less resolute in what I think I know.

This year, I am resolving to be even less resolute about things that really don’t matter. Loving people is way more effective than judging people. Understanding people is more important than taking a position about people. Acknowledging that who I am and how I live my life may not be the only “good” way to be and live. Yes, it is important to be discerning about things that could be dangerous to personal physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual safety. Discerning does not mean certainty, however. I’m always going to leave room for the Holy Spirit.

Did you have any New Year’s resolutions for 2020? How are they going for you? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Resolve to have a great day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Catching Up With The Kid

I don’t think I was ever a child, even when I was one. Sure, I must have been young once. I am sure I had a toddlerhood. I have the pictures to prove it. Somewhere around the age of five, though, I lost the kiddiness.

I think I was always a pretty old soul… serious, hyper-responsible, and perceptive. Even as a kid, I was not good at living in the moment. I tended to plan and think about what I would be doing years in advance. Instead of playing joyfully and discovering the richness of the world, I sort of just waited to grow up. I can remember being aware, even as a young child, that adults laughed at things children said and did. Now, I know that when a child causes an adult to laugh, it is often sweet and endearing. As a child, all I perceived was that I was being laughed at. And being laughed at seemed to be a very bad thing, indeed. The end result was that I kept a low profile and avoided doing anything that might provoke what I saw as ridicule. It is sad, but I feel like I waited out my youth.

I started saving money to go to Europe when I was eleven. I began working when I was sixteen, even though there was no economic necessity that I do so. I married young. I started working at my “career job” within weeks of graduating from college. My friends were all older than I. I never seemed to fit in with an age-appropriate life, so I cobbled out my version of an adult grown up life long before it made sense. Once I went down that path, it seemed unlikely that I would ever veer off it.

When I got divorced, I did start to find the child that I had long ago stuffed inside the deepest recesses of myself. I remember thinking that I was finally learning to play. There was one day when I was walking on the beach when it hit me. I had a week off from work. I let the sun melt the tightness on my shoulders. I locked my inner fussbudget in a closet deep inside my brain. I heard the breeze whooshing around my ears. I saw the crystalline sunlight fracturing into prisms around me. I tasted the salt in the air. I smelled the pungent odor of sunscreen and seaweed. I felt wet sand crunching and oozing between my toes. Suddenly, I knew what it meant to live in the moment and slip my leash. The saturation of the experience did not last long, but it did at least teach me that I had a lot of work to do if I was ever going to learn to play. The experience stayed with me, but I was already Little Red Riding Hood deep in Grown Up Woods. My beach experience taught me that there was a wolf inside me trying to devour my childhood, but I was too far gone to really avoid that eventuality.

Once I left my working life behind me, I still had responsibilities. Certainly, if there is anything that convinces a person that she is a grown up, it is losing a parent. Still, I have taken time over the past five years of my retirement to get to know that kid I could have been, had I allowed myself to embrace being a child. It seems the further back in my rearview mirror my career gets, the more riotously childlike (or childish, depending on your perspective) I become.

Some of you have been following along with some of my adventures- hunting for elves on my shelves, undergoing a bippity boppity Tinker Bell makeover, making proximity to Disney World a criterion for deciding where I would move in retirement, wearing light-up Christmas crocs just about everywhere, spending rather large amounts of money to get up close and personal encounters with adorable wild animals, volunteering to play a part in a reenactment of a colonial courtroom drama when visiting Williamsburg, and plunging headlong into activities for which I have absolutely no aptitude… just for the fun of it. Part of my premature and intense adulthood manifested itself as an impressive talent for worrying. I won’t say I don’t worry anymore. That would be absurd. Certainly, though, I worry a lot less. I don’t worry so much about what I look like. I don’t worry so much about being good at anything. I don’t worry so much about doing stuff. I just do stuff. As a result, I think I look prettier, have better and more diverse skills, and enjoy life much more.

People say that we sometimes enter a “second childhood” when we age. I don’t think I am entering a second childhood. I am just catching up with the first one.

How about you? Have you become more childlike in retirement? Why do you think that is? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a childish day… just KIDding!

Terri/Dorry 😊

PS If you are wondering why this is early, it is because the child in me got impatient and pushed the “publish” button instead of the “schedule” button.

Mourning Backwards

I thought that grief was supposed to lessen over time. I could swear I missed my mom more this past holiday season than previous Christmases. Despite having an overall holly jolly time, I hit a rough patch the last week or so before Christmas. I felt like I crammed a lot of riotous, rollicking activities into the time between mid-November and mid-December. Once I found myself past the flurry of events, I realized I had cleared a wide, fresh pathway to feeling sad. One day, I got it into my head to go to a mall and the Christmas Tree decoration store my mother and I frequented several times. I would normally never consider going shopping so close to Christmas, but I had a few errands that I thought I could knock out quickly. Of course, I didn’t knock them out quickly. It was a bit of a hard slog made even harder because of my mother’s absence.

I have many happy memories of my mother associated with Christmas. Most people would say that they love Christmas. Why else do songsters keep belting out “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year?” To my mother, though, Christmas was an art form. It wasn’t like she was one of those crazy Christmas light folks on television, but there was something intensely special about the way she threw herself into the season. There are so many holiday moments that she engraved permanently into my brain with love. It makes me so happy that I have these memories. Without a doubt, those memories enrich my experience of Christmas, even since her death. There is also a sadness tied up in those memories that breaks through every year at the holidays.

Every year since I can remember, my mother used to take me Christmas shopping on a special day. She did the same for my brother. Ostensibly, the trip was for each of us to buy a Christmas present for the other sibling. In truth, there was another agenda that I did not perceive until well into my teen years. My mom would take us on these outings to buy a present for our sibling… and so she could see what delighted the kid on the shopping expedition with her. She explained to someone once that she would watch what caught my eye and what I “oohed and awed over” as I wandered the stores looking for a present for my brother. I was never very good at telling anyone what I wanted, so she would watch my reaction to items in the store for ideas about what might enchant me on Christmas morning. She always did great.

My shopping day with my mother continued until the December before her stroke. As she aged and became frailer, we had to adapt what we did and for how long, but we always had a wonderful time. We’d look at Christmas decorations, listen to Christmas music, buy stuff we didn’t need, and revel in being together. This shared annual experience was so much a part of who we were together, I even tried to arrange a special transport to take her to the tiny mall in our town that last December of her life. Unfortunately, before I could get the authorization and organize everything, she started to let go of her hold on her “regular” world and began to head down her journey towards the next life.

My shopping trip right before Christmas this past holiday screamed “mom” at me. It just felt so much like something she should have shared with me, as she had so many other pre-Christmas shopping trips. Suddenly, I missed her with a physical fierce coldness that seemed to simultaneously freeze my respiratory system and melt my digestive system. My knees wobbled alarmingly. For a few moments, my brain seemed to spin around inside my skull and I thought I might faint. I was standing in a depressingly long line at JC Penney’s. I grabbed a shelf on one side of the line and waited for the feeling to pass. The intensity of the pain did pass, but left some emotional havoc in its wake.

Someone once told me that one key to managing depression is to HALT. Don’t get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. I realized that I was all four of these “halts.” I couldn’t do much about being hungry or tired while standing in line, unless I called out for pizza and a sleeping bag. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being lonely for my momma. I could, however, choose to stop feeling angry and frustrated with the massive line at Penney’s. I used the rest of my time standing in line observing the shoppers around me and the clerks at the cash registers. For the most part, the shoppers were pretty disgruntled and the sales clerks were serene and polite. I decided I would try to flip the script. When it was my turn to pay, I made a special effort to be pleasant and grateful.

I transacted my business at Penney’s and moved on to Macy’s. Some weeks ago, I bought a wonderfully warm, fluffy robe at Macy’s. The weather finally cooled off enough by the middle of December for me to wear it to water aerobics class. That is when I discovered that the Macy’s sales associate had neglected to remove the security tag. Macy’s is about 40 miles from my house, so I originally decided to just live with a grey plastic device flopping at the side of my robe. When people started looking at me funny at the pool, clearly wondering if I had embarked on a life of crime, I thought better of that tactic. That was my motivation for going to the mall less than a week before Christmas. I brought the robe to get the Macy’s people to untag me.

When I got to Macy’s, it seemed that people were even nastier than they were at Penney’s. I purposely let several people go ahead of me because they were unhinged and I thought it would be helpful for the sales clerk if she didn’t have to balance her priorities between Miss Christmas Crazy Person 2019 and me, who had been waiting in line ahead of her (to say nothing of the fact that I would not have had to drive 40 miles and stand in line at all if the first sales clerk had removed the tag in the first place.) I smiled at the clerks supportively and even suggested that they take care of another timebomb of a shopper before they waited on me. I found it strangely serene and comforting to engage in these small acts of kindness. I said a little prayer to thank God for His blessing in helping me find this little coping mechanism.

I was pretty proud of myself until I left the mall and realized I was still very hungry and… lonely. I drove to a nearby McDonald’s. McDonald’s was also a holiday tradition in my home. For some unknown and clearly irrational reason, I didn’t like McDonald’s hamburgers as a child. I did, however, love the French fries. On Christmas Eve, my mother would fry hamburgers at home and my father would go to McDonald’s and buy French fries. When I got older (and over my antipathy to McDonald’s hamburgers), it was a special treat during Christmas vacation for my brother and me to ride our bikes to McDonald’s alone and have lunch. So, as weird as it sounds, McDonald’s has a sentimental attraction for me.

At McDonald’s, I found they converted to a customer-driven electronic ordering system. I stared at the huge monitor and began pushing buttons, trying to follow the directions. Something about the electronic ordering system baffled me. I kept getting to a place in the process that thwarted me. I felt more and more defeated as I kept trying. I felt confused and despondent. After trying several times, I surrendered. I still had enough of my wits about me to know that I should not get back in the car and drive without something to eat. I went up and tried to explain my dilemma to the nice young lady at the counter. For some reason, I was also having trouble finding words to explain what was wrong. I kept apologizing. She never skipped a beat or appeared impatient. She was sincerely kind. Ultimately, we completed the ordering process. I took my number and went off to find a table, embarrassed at the fuss I was making. Once I sat down, I even started to cry softly and discreetly. Another employee, who was cleaning up around the lobby, came over to ask if I was okay and if she could do anything for me.

After I ate my lunch and nourished my psyche with some perspective, I thought about how thankful I was for the kindness of the McDonald’s employees. A fast food restaurant is about the last place one would expect workers to rise above the madness and inject a little humanity into the day. Fast food restaurants are loud, crowded, and thrive on doing things quickly and efficiently. These McDonald’s employees were not only efficient using their hands and heads, they went a step further and used their hearts.

I wanted to do something to thank them. They deserved it. Plus, I had been reminded by my experiences at the department stores that it makes me feel better to do something nice for someone else. I went over to the lobby employee, thanked her, and gave her a hug. I also thanked the lady at the counter. They were both over the moon. I also told the manager how grateful I was to both the employees. I told her that being nice is a superpower. People don’t always realize how much difference it can make to just be nice.

When my mother was shrinking through her last year of life, I often found myself being the kind of person I didn’t want to be. I was impatient, snappish, and cranky all too frequently. I felt like I was losing the best parts of me- the gentleness, the peace, the playfulness, the affection. I was ashamed. I blamed myself… and I also blamed the grief. I believed the mourning was destroying the me I had always been.

In the last year or so, I rejoice because I feel some of those shinier sides of me returning. I notice myself behaving as I would have behaved years ago. It makes me so happy. I also notice that, like on my pre-Christmas shopping day, I am finding more tiny ways to nurture happiness in the world.

For me… and maybe for everybody… mourning is not a linear process. There is no forward or backward. There is ebb and flow. There are zigs and zags. There are swirls and spirals. Mourning gains and loses momentum, depending on external circumstances and internal conditions… like hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness. The most important thing, though, is that mourning does not have to destroy. Mourning can also create.

I consider the shot of grief that often accompanies my memories of my mother to be the “price of admission” to being able to re-experience the happy times with her. I think it is worth it to have the odd meltdown now and then in order to access the sweet memories. What do you think? Is it worth being sad sometimes over the death of a loved one to also remember the joyful times and connections? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a sweetly memorable day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

#BestDayEver

I see the slogan #BestDayEver all over the place. There seems to be a certain amount of disagreement on what exactly constitutes the #BestDayEver. It comes up in commercials for traveling to exotic lands. I’ve seen it in conjunction with people who have just gotten married. One friend of mine used it when describing the day she received a job offer from a perspective employer. Another was all about the #BestDayEver when she found a pair of shoes she wanted on sale. I see it frequently in amusement park marketing. I even see the slogan accompanied by graphics of mouse-shaped ice cream bars, pretzels, and doughnuts.

So, what does make the #BestDayEver?

As much as I love amusement parks and the House of Mouse in particular, I have to suggest that a day at Disney, in itself, does not constitute the #BestDayEver. Shocking, perhaps, but there you have it.

I think we sometimes confuse fun, happiness, and joy. To determine the #BestDayEver, it might be useful to explore the differences between the three.

Fun is when you do a pleasurable activity. It could be traveling to a new vacation spot. It could be going to Disney World. It could be writing a blog. It could even be doing housework, if that is what floats your boat. Fun is great. It is still possible to be sad while having fun, however.

Happiness is what happens when you feel satisfied and content and light all over. Your world seems untroubled for the moment. The moon is in the seventh house and your planets are aligned. There is a line from a song from the play Wicked that says, “Happiness is what happens when all your dreams come true.” Happiness is wonderful. On the other hand, happiness is extremely fragile. It is dependent on external circumstances. The slightest turn of events has the power to turn happiness into grief.

Joy, on the other hand, is deeper and less transitory. Joy is about what completes you and fills your soul. It is all about the internal. It is the feeling of permanent peace, hope, faith, and love. It is about knowing that- no matter what is going on in the world around you, no matter what your immediate circumstances- your spirit is soaring, contented, precious, and beautiful. It is possible to be joyful, even when one is not having fun and even when one is unhappy. From my perspective, there is only one true source of Joy. That Joy that fills me and lifts me, even at times when life is neither fun nor happy, is the knowledge that, through Jesus, I am a cherished child of God.

Those of you who have been following along with my blog know that I have my dark moments. It is easy to see that I am not always having fun and I am not always happy. It might even seem like I don’t always feel the Joy. I think that, maybe, none of us will ever experience the completeness of Joy in this life. However, as I grow in wisdom, age, and favor, I get closer to the Joy. I get a little taste of what the bliss of Heaven will be. Maybe we develop our most authentic relationships with God and with our fellow souls by the constant effort to reach for the Joy each day. As I reach for it more and more, I find it more often.

I often think about what plans God has for me and what my purpose is in this life. I’ve talked before about my belief that my mission is to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. I hope, as I meander through life, that I can shine the light on the Joy for others so they, too, can get a little taste of that Heaven on earth.

So, what makes the #BestDayEver? Surely, it would be a day when I am having fun, feeling happy, AND experiencing Joy. Joy is the most important ingredient, though. A happy day doing something fun without Joy can never be the #BestDayEver. In fact, any day without Joy would be the #WorstDayEver!

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

Have a fun, happy, and joyful day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

EXTRA BONUS CONTENT If this blog struck a chord with any of you and you would like to learn more, I have an invitation for you. If you are in the Leesburg, Florida area and would like to explore some of the big faith-based questions of life in an open, non-judgmental, nonthreatening environment, please join us at the Alpha program at St. James Episcopal at 204 Lee Street in Leesburg.

It doesn’t matter where you are in your journey- some people are just beginning to question if Christianity is what they want, some people have been Christians, some people are agnostically curious, some people are regular churchgoers and just want to feel more grounded, passionate, and connected to their faith.

The program starts Thursday, 1/9/20 at 6:00pm with a dinner. After the dinner, there is a short video about some aspect of Christianity. After the video, we break into small groups where people can ask questions, talk about what they believe, and raise concerns about any aspect of faith or church. You can say anything you want, as long as it is said respectfully. You can also say absolutely nothing, if that is what you want. The program is free, including the dinner.

Santa Claus Got Eaten By An Alligator

Is there something you really wanted that you didn’t get for Christmas? I think I know why.

The world is weird. At times, I think my particular parcel of the world is weirder than most. Some may say that I perceive more peculiarity than is good for me simply because, since retirement, I have more time to notice the weirdness around me. I don’t think that is it. Even before I retired, people would often remark that I seemed to be a “weird magnet.” If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “it could only happen to you,” I’d have been able to retire before I ever had a job.

Let me describe the recent weirdness in my world that may explain why that special something, whatsit, or gizmo did not make it under your Christmas tree this year.

In my development, Christmas decorating is a big deal. Wonderful volunteers festoon the whole community with beautiful, brilliant, bedazzled ornamentation. Many individual residents also decorate their houses with light displays, inflatable characters, nativities, and other festive touches. I am very grateful for the people who do all that because I love to see it. My idea of outdoor decoration is to stick a few outsized plastic ornaments on the tree next to the garage door and haul out my three-foot plastic polar bear holding the solar lantern. A good woman has got to know her limitations. Max and I always go driving around the community on Christmas Eve to enjoy my more energetic neighbors’ handiwork. This year, we noticed a house decorated with two-dimensional Christmas icons made of strings of lights. There was also a cut-out of a red sleigh, roughly the size of a Honda Civic, which was also outlined in lights. I understood the significance of the sleigh. I also understood the significance of the reindeer, geese, and gift-wrapped present figures. What was a little more puzzling to me was the traditional Christmas…wait for it….alligator?

Yes, there was an alligator made of green lights decking the halls of this house, right next to the sleigh and reindeer and geese and presents. Since the house backed up on a pond, I suppose it made sense. Still, when we noticed this somewhat bizarre Christmas visitor on our Christmas Eve decoration drive, I couldn’t help but think it would have been nice to put a little Santa hat on him or something. We got home that evening, chuckling about the weird Florida Christmas. What would be next? Eight tiny geckos? An early bird in a palm tree?

I shouldn’t have been so flippant.

A couple of evenings later, we were coming home from dinner and noticed the alligator house. I gasped in horror. THE ALLIGATOR WAS IN THE SLEIGH!!!! The implications of this phenomenon were too gruesome to imagine. Unfortunately, imagine them I did. I couldn’t get the picture of the alligator picking his teeth out of my head. What’s worse is that I think I heard that alligator belch to the tune of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”

Last night, the alligator was no longer in the sleigh. He was back at ground level but appeared to be engaged in a stand-off with one of the Christmas geese figures. Given that no one has seen Santa Claus lately, my money is on the alligator. I think that goose is cooked.

A terrible picture, as the alligator moved again tonight… he seems to be making his move on the goose, which is now just a blur in this picture.

Here’s hoping your new year will be a lot happier than that of this goose! What are your wishes for 2020? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Happy New Year!

Terri/Dorry 🙂