Category: no fear

Second act

by Karen, posted in family, friends, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, no fear, relationships, Turning 50

I was watching the second episode of the new season of The Middle on TV. In it, Frankie has just unexpectedly lost her job and decides that instead of just running out to get another (crappy) job, she is going to treat this event as an opportunity,  a ‘second act’ in her life.

She decides to go back to school and learn to do something else. Something better.

Since turning 50 a few months ago, I’ve been thinking that my own second act may have started (or maybe even the third…but I digress).

I am hopeful this time around will be a bit easier. After all, this time around I have the benefit of wisdom to help me to successfully navigate what’s ahead, not to mention the love and support of my family and friends. Well, okay, I did have the that first time around too.

Thank God.

Also, this time around I live near enough to the ocean to visit it every day. As everyone knows, the ocean is the cure for what ails you.

Important lessons learned:  My husband rocks. My son rocks. My daughter rocks.  They all have my back every single day and really, what else matters?

The right words at the right time

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief, Midlife Crisis, no fear, relationships

Today, someone told me something that I really needed to hear.

We have been dealing with an ongoing issue for years and things rarely go our way. This year there are some new people involved, one of whom we know from another area of our lives.

These were the words: “I’m on your side.”

After she said them, I felt a subtle shift, and my thoughts about the situation in which we are both involved changed.  I started having new, different, more positive thoughts. I felt less anxious. Suddenly, I started tearing up.  I breathed through it. Everything might actually turn out okay, I thought.

Later on this afternoon, I was in other circumstances that became emotional and I started tearing up again. I went to sit in my car. I called my husband at work, which I rarely do at that time of day because I know it will be difficult for him to come to the phone. I was lucky enough to reach him and then, for the second time today, someone told me something that I really needed to hear.

This is what he said: “Everything is going to be alright.”

Everything is going to be alright.

Pig aggression

by Karen, posted in fitness, local fun, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, no fear, Turning 50

I was walking my route other morning when I heard an animal noise from behind me. I was passing the pig sty (literal, not figurative) that is on the street adjacent to mine right at the side of the road, so of course I knew it was a pig. These pigs also routinely jump the fence so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw him in the road, staring at me, grunting.
Note: a pig’s grunt sounds ominously like a mountain lion. I don’t know why. It just does.

For several seconds I just stood there, unsure if I should try to pass it or go back the other way.  Should I call my husband to come and pick me up (which he would have done, after he finished laughing)?  What if it charged me? It looked like it was almost as big as I am, and may even have outweighed me. I decided to close my eyes and walk very fast past the pen while chanting to myself, “I am very safe; I am very safe.”

I told my husband about this when I got back and we had a good laugh.

The next day I went to the beach instead (in order to avoid another pig incident) to do my usual walk to the jetty. I was almost all the way back when I became aware of footsteps running up behind me, then retreating, then catching up again. I didn’t look at first, because there were so many unleashed dogs on the beach that I thought it must be that. The third time it approached, though, I did turn and look…and it was a male wearing a rubber pig face mask, which was about an inch from my face.

Need I say that I was scared to death?

This time, my husband was there. Within about a second he was running full tilt toward me to see if I was okay, then he went to, um, discuss the event with the perp. This time, I didn’t have to convince myself I was safe. This time, my husband made sure that I was safe.

One question remains: What the heck is the universe trying to tell me with these pigs?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Another first

by Karen, posted in fitness, health, local fun, Midlife Crisis, no fear, the beach, Turning 50

When I turned 50 this year, I decided to try to do things for the first time, since this is my first year in a new decade. Today, I went swimming at the beach all by myself.

This is no small undertaking, to which anyone who wears glasses and is severely myopic will attest. The problem is this: what to do with the glasses? Leave them on, and risk losing them to the ocean, or leave them in a bag with your stuff on your chair, and risk losing yourself?

If I go swimming at the beach with others (who, you know, can see), they can guide me back to our place in the sand, no problem. When faced with the prospect of trying to find my way back without guidance, I have always balked, then caved. In other words, I’ve never done it.

Until today. I brought my red canvas bag, hoping that I would be able to detect the bright color, if nothing else, when it was time to leave the water and find my stuff. I put my chair right at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the parking lot. I walked in a straight line to the ocean, which was at medium-low (not low-low) tide, so I didn’t have to go too far to get back to square one. I hoped for the best.

My Plan B was this: to depend on the kindness of strangers. “Excuse me, but I’m lost…” wouldn’t sound very convincing coming from the mouth of a 50-year-old, so I fervently hoped I wouldn’t have to go this route.

I am happy to report that I didn’t! I swam in the ocean for 20 minutes, came out (just to prove to myself that I could find my stuff–and to get away from the teenage boy who wouldn’t stop taunting his sister with talk about the sharks getting us), then went back in for another 20 minutes.

Life was good today.

Book review: The Sound of Hope

by Karen, posted in books, education, family, health, no fear, teens, tweens

The Sound of HopeThe Sound of Hope by Lois Kam Heymann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is geared toward children from birth through about age 8 with APD. It’s still worth reading if your child is older, but there aren’t many interventions that will work with your tween or teenager. Also, I thought it was very naive of the author to lead parents to believe that their school district will be ready, willing, and/or able to work with them to make sure that their child with APD receives a fair and appropriate education and is successful in school. The odds are that the school personnel will not even have HEARD of APD. The burden will be on the parents to advocate for their child.

View all my reviews

Brave the movie

by Karen, posted in family, local fun, movies, no fear, teens

Brave in a nutshell: Best hair in a movie–ever. Lots of slap stick humor. Butts abound. There is one anomaly: a mother.

This is a Disney film, after all, but it includes a mother. Any of you who grew up with Bambi, The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Cinderella…evil stepmothers notwithstanding, there are no living birth mothers in this crowd.

In Brave, however, Merida has one. Does she get to keep her? Well, yes. And no. And yes.

I took my daughter and her friend to see this movie, but it was really more like they took me. I am the one that really wanted to see it. They were sort of humoring me, I think. In the end, though, they both said they liked it as much as I did. They especially liked Merida’s trio of terrible brothers. Okay, fine. So did I.

The central conflict in the movie is this: it’s ‘time’ for Merida to step up and be the princess that her mother has been grooming her to be since birth, and Merida is not the least bit interested in doing this. For (not) the first time in the history of the world, what a mother desires for her daughter and what a daughter desires for herself are two very different things.
From there, a metaphorical battle ensues between mother and daughter as they each try to make the other come around to their own point of view.

Go; see if the twain shall meet.

Girls of a feather

by Karen, posted in health, local fun, Midlife Crisis, no fear, teens, Turning 50

My daughter and I got matching feathers a few months ago. Why? I don’t know. We were at a business expo and there was someone offering to feather people for $5. She said it usually costs $8 but it was a special price Today Only (certainly we’ve all heard that before).

Anyway, she wanted one so I figured it was harmless enough so we got in line. Izzy got to choose her feather from a box of multicolored styles of varying lengths. Once it was in, it looked…FABULOUS! As we walked around the expo, I was liking her new feather so much, then I had a sudden thought:

“I want one!”

So, since this is My Year of Turning 50, and I made the decision previously to follow any and all whims as they arise, I got one.

After a few weeks of living with the feathers, Izzy and I liked them so much, that we returned to Melissa at her regular place of business and got a second one.

Was that wrong?
So far, they are holding up pretty well, except that my pink feather is now completely white, which is not a problem.
🙂

 

Time: is it on my side?

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Midlife Crisis, no fear, Turning 50

I made a decision the week that I turned 50 and also was on vacation: I wouldn’t wear my watch. I had a couple of goals.

1. To stop being so ruled by the time of day it was (eg: “time for breakfast” or “time for bed”)

2. To make my vacation feel longer.

So for about 10 days, I didn’t wear my watch. It turned out that on the few occasions when I tried to guess the time, my guesses were usually pretty close: within 15 minutes or so of the actual time. Of course, for the first several days, I looked at my watch-less wrist to see what time it was, but then when I remembered that I wore no watch, I just said, “Okay, I don’t know what time it is,” and was okay with that.

I didn’t start wearing my watch again until today. I put it on this morning, then after i looked at it for the third time and realized that it still said 10:12AM (not to mention that it was also a day behind on the date!), the ugly truth was revealed: THE BATTERY STOPPED.

Really? Really?

Is the Universe sending me a message?

Speaking your truth

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief, local fun, Midlife Crisis, no fear, Turning 50

Over the past several months, I’ve had quite a lot to say about turning 50 this year to quite a lot of people.

That was then. Several months ago, heck, even several weeks ago, it seemed so far off in the future.

This is now. Now, it’s looming large, and for some reason, I’m finding that I have very little to say. That’s so unlike me! Usually, I’m “talking and I can’t shut up”–just ask my husband.

As part of my turning 50 and vowing to follow any and all whims that present themselves, I bought a half off Maine Deal coupon for a psychic reading by Melissa Boyd of Deep Blue Truth.

One of the things she told me (apart from that my Mom, Dad, and grandmothers were all there and said, ‘Hi!’ 🙂 ) was that my throat chakra was so backed up it was like a bottle neck. The throat chakra is #5, counting up from the bottom root chakra. This is (surprise!) the center of communication and expression.

Apparently, I am not speaking my truth. Who knew? After doing a little online research, I learned that wearing a particular bracelet–one made of Sodalite–can help. (Really? Really? If only it turns out to be that easy).

I’m willing to give it a try.

Lilac poaching

by Karen, posted in gardening, local fun, Midlife Crisis, no fear, Turning 50

Lilacs are my favorite flower. They always have been, as far back as I can remember. My grandmother had a large white lilac bush in her back yard and it was one of my favorite things in the world when I was a little girl.

Over the years, we have had houses with varying numbers of lilac bushes on the property. At one point, my husband went all out and planted a lilac garden that included every color of lilac we’d ever seen or heard of. We had plenty of places to put them that got full sun and that were hospitable to lilacs and they thrived.  

That was the pinnacle.

Since then, our success with lilacs has been less exciting. My husband always tries to plant as many as possible, and then they either do well or they don’t.  In our present house, he made a huge effort and planted two pink lilac bushes on either side of the front door as a Mothers Day/Birthday Present for me one year. That was amazing and I love them.

And yet.

This time of year, I am overcome with a longing for many, many lilacs in many, many col0rs and want them in vases in every room in my house.

Currently, I have none.

Now I find myself trolling the streets of southern Maine, looking for lilacs in abandonned lots to poach. I have been known to go out at dawn to travel the back streets to cut lilacs from bushes that are in areas that could be construed as ‘public property’.

My husband has told me he will not bail me out when I get caught.