Losing my labels

Blue-collar, white collar, chief executive, day laborer, and stay at home mom, and the list goes on. Words that we use to describe who we are and what we do; they may even shed some light on who we are as individuals. Really they are just labels; labels that many of us are deeply invested in. Labels that hold so much power and sway in our personal orbs that if we are faced with the reality of losing our labels, it can rock us to our core.

For the past several weeks in the midst of the professional storms that I am facing, I have found myself in the quiet moments wondering who will I be if I can’t turn things around? For the past four years, I have been known primarily by my professional accomplishments and at times my ego has sucked it all up. The ego has a tendency to thrive on accolades and accomplishments, it feels good. Yet the ego is not my friend and I know this, but the ego is that lover who is bad for you but you just can’t quite break free of…not even for your own good. No one is completely free of ego and the ego knows it, hence my own desire to work towards mindfulness at all times. I can’t shake ego but I can at least be aware of it.

I realized that should I cease to be the executive director of my agency, I will still be me. If my column for the Portland Phoenix should end, I will still be me. Hell, I could lose my family and I would still be me. I am more than the roles I play and the labels I wear. The labels I wear and embrace may say something about me, but they are not me. The problem is we live in a time where our labels say so much, that to lose or change labels especially on the things we as a society deem to be most important in the eyes of others are the hardest to lose. It’s why America has a middle class problem. We all claim that label even in the face of clear data that says otherwise. We are more than our class levels, we are more than our jobs but it takes time to accept that truth and feel comfortable in it.

As for me, no matter what happens I will make peace with just being me. Individually made and unique. Growth requires change and change requires accepting that nothing stays the same, not even our labels.

Mom and bodies…uncomfortable and unspoken truths

I lost the battle of the flat stomach twenty-one years ago when I gave birth to my son at nineteen. Sure, I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight less than a week after giving birth, but I have been chasing the dream of the flat belly ever since and it stops now. Despite talking a good game over the years and decades, I have been involved in a dysfunctional hate-tolerate relationship with my body like too many women. This relationship is over and it’s all because of my seven year old daughter.

A few days ago, my daughter was talking to me and all of a sudden I heard her utter that word that should just be stricken from the English and any other language that it exists in…diet. My antenna went up and I asked her what she was talking about, where did she hear that word? In the end it doesn’t matter where she heard it because the truth is we live in a society that worships at the altar of thinness and I have been guilty of being a congregant at that church more times than I care to admit.

Just last week, I went out to the local tweet up and mentally spent most of my time filled with angst because the majority of the bodies present were young and thin. So I hung on a bar stool and spent most of my time talking with just a handful of people since as a 40 year old slightly overweight woman, I felt out of place. As if I didn’t belong. Who told me that I didn’t belong? No one but I felt that I didn’t belong because my body isn’t perfect, it isn’t thin. Never mind that it is strong, healthy and limber as hell thanks to four years of yoga.

For the past few days I have been reflecting on my conversation with my daughter and wondering how many times have I subconsciously passed on the message that certain bodies are better than others even though I have been careful to never use the word diet? I think about the times my girl has suggested I wear a certain outfit because she thinks it is cute but I won’t wear it because it will accentuate that which I am not comfortable with? Too many times.

Today, I woke up thinking about the parts of my body that I adore…turns out that I love my legs. They are gorgeous and more importantly they are strong and they root me into the ground, they are my metaphorical rocks. Even this jelly belly that I loathe because it makes clothes shopping a hassle is soft and squishy and warm like a buttery corn muffin. Who doesn’t love a buttery corn muffin?

My leg

I won’t lie, it will take some work to truly embrace my entire physical being but just like the mental and spiritual work that I have been doing in recent years. It is time. What about you? What do you adore about your body?

Busy, the road to bad health

Busy, busy and more busy. That seems to be a constant theme in modern day life. Have you recently tried to plan a get together that involves more than two people? Forget about it. By the time everyone pulls out their calendars to look for a day when everyone is available, chances are you are at least a month out maybe two. Call someone up at the last minute to see if they want to grab a cup of coffee or a beer? Forget about it. Busy.

Lately I have found myself pondering the price we pay for being busy and based off a strange experiment I found myself in the middle of; I would say that this national anthem of busy is making for an unwell nation.

I no longer think it is just coincidence for many of us that the busier we get, the worse we feel. My own experience is that busy creates a slew of bad behaviors that because we are too busy to notice creates an absence of good health. Then we get caught up on the hamster wheel of poor health except again we don’t realize we are in poor health because we are too busy to actually know our bodies.

In the past year as I have moved my yogic lifestyle off the mat and into all areas of my life, I can no longer deny the correlations to how I feel and the choices that I make. Prior to choosing to be mindful of seemingly simple things like my diet and sleeping habits, I felt like shit most of the time. It turns out that when I go to bed by 11pm, and get a solid 7-8 hours of sleep, I don’t need the steady IV drip of coffee that was a staple for most of my adult life. Now, coffee past early afternoon is no longer tasty. You have to understand that I have been essentially freebasing coffee since I was a teenager. Up until a few years ago, putting away a pot or two of coffee plus a daily latte (or two or three) was my norm. The times when my coffee consumption was unintentionally cut were absolute disasters barring pregnancy when my body clearly was trying to send me a signal.

For more years than I care to share when it came to my diet, my only concerns were the numbers on the scale. I would alter my eating habits just enough to make the numbers on the scale went down along with the number on my clothing tags. If the number on the tags said 4 or 6, I was ecstatic and if it said 12 or 14, I was ready to stuff myself into a large Hefty bag and stay hidden until the numbers went down. Weight Watchers which isn’t a bad program helped me keep the numbers acceptable as long as I ate in a manner that was my incompatible to who I really am but as I have lamented before in this space, I often felt I needed something more.

Turns out when I stop being busy long enough that I can be mindful and present I recognize why I am eating and I am naturally mindful of the choices that I make. I don’t snack much if at all anymore and when I do, it generally stems from the fact that I am bored, anxious or suffering from PMS. If I choose to snack, I want to know why but when I am too busy, I can’t ask those questions and as result when I am busy, I often mindlessly overeat which creates a whole other set of issues. Sluggish and stuffed for starters.

Even being mindful of what media I consume seems to have an impact on my health. When I am too busy to settle down with a good book and instead choose to feast on the non-stop media buffet of bad news and social media, I now notice that it is harder to quiet my mind and that what I am consuming in those moments affects me deeply. News is good (a complete lack of awareness about the world around us isn’t the answer either) but a non-stop diet of upsetting and at times gut wrenching news and shallow surface connections in lieu of moments spent in the presence of loved ones is just bad for me.

I am a broken record these days and I know it; but allowing my mind to actually be quiet enough that I am alone with my true self feels like the miracle drug to me. Does it solve every problem, of course not? It does however allow me to see what is really an issue and what is just more of the mindless hum in the background creating unnecessary stress and strain.

I didn’t know how good mindful living was until the past couple of weeks when I consciously and intentionally chose to slide back in to my old safety blanket of bad habits. After the bombs started dropping in my professional and personal life, it felt like too much work to be mindful. It started out innocently enough, but it quickly snowballed and the end result is I feel bad. Real bad and yeah, I am busy.

My choice is clear; I cannot allow myself to get so busy that I stop being aware. No matter how rough things are allowing myself to stop caring enough to take care of myself is simply not an option. In order to live fully and completely even in the midst of life’s storms, I need to be in good health and for me good health demands that I stop being too busy to make time for myself. Universe, I have received the message loud and clear, now let me go back a cup of ginger tea.

Baby stepping to the life I need

Many times when I sit down to write a blog post, I start with an idea in mind but often times I end up following the lead of my spirit. For some reason, I feel as if this space is slowly evolving into a middle aged woman self-help space and I must say that is not intentional but more a reflection of where I am in my life right now.

For quite some time, I have been reflecting on an ever growing disconnect in my life, there is where I want to be versus where I really am. I imagine on some level, many of us have that internal battle about some area of our lives. However recent events in my life have made that disconnect seem even wider to me. A few events have happened in the past 24 hours that are forcing me to look at that disconnect and see that it really doesn’t have to be that way. Yet I am stubborn, I am a planner, I like to feel like I am in charge and really it’s all ego. The ego can be a nasty piece of work.

Tonight however a fellow blogger and online pal Kelly Hogaboom sent this message to me “You can make positive deposits in your own economy every day by associating with encouraging and hope-building people.” Reading that was truly a light bulb moment as cliché as it sounds. Too many times, I am guilty of keeping people in my life for a variety of reasons despite the fact that the connections are no longer beneficial to me. At the same time, I don’t open myself fully to the people and connections that are truly beneficial to me. As a result, I am unhappy and disconnected and often filled with angst when it comes to my personal relationships. Can I just say that I am sick and tired of this ride and I am ready to get off.

So here is to making some intentional shifts in life, sometimes the universe sends us the answer in ways we least expect. For me it was 140 characters coupled with a few events that have kicked me out of my comfy seat. Now I will start baby stepping towards lessening that disconnect and being where I want and need to be.

When my truth hurts others…the downside of radical honesty

This year has barely started and already it has been packed full of excitement, most of which if I had my way would cease to be…but do I really get a say? Of course not! In the midst of dealing with my father’s health issues, it seems I passed a milestone (actually a few, including my eldest turning 21…yikes!). Last month this blog turned 5 years old. If you know anything about the blog world, I am nice and middle aged now…gee, the blog and I are running on the same trajectory.

This week has been an interesting time in the life of this blog, one of the challenges of having a larger and more diverse readership is that frankly I am feeling less open. I started this blog in 2008 when I was in the midst of an 18 month period of unemployment. I was doing some grant writing for a few clients and desperately looking for a permanent job. I had briefly worked with a life coach and one of the areas of career interest that I had identified from that process was writing. At that time, I was already doing a column for the Portland Phoenix and wanted to expand my writing. Back then I thought a blog might be able to lead to something more substantial that would bring in some income. It was also a way for me to experiment with my voice in a way that neither grant writing nor my column allowed.

Back in the old days of this blog, I wrote whatever I felt like writing, safe in the knowledge that very few people were actually reading what I wrote. I am not sure when things changed, but they have changed and this week, for the first time ever, I am feeling the impact of sharing myself with others and really I am feeling at a crossroads with this space.

In the past few years, I have embarked on a personal journey to make peace with myself. Part of making peace with myself is being radically honest with myself and by extension this space being part of me is where I strive to be radically honest. The problem with radical honesty is that for many people, it’s hurtful and can come across as rude. This is the point at which I have to say I am looking at the wall and not really sure where to go.

A few days ago, I published a piece on this site, which came from a deeply honest place in my spirit. While many replied either on the blog or directly to me and understood the spirit in which I wrote the piece, not all agreed. In fact a long time reader who did reply to that piece said she was done reading, as she felt I didn’t get it. I have had other people unsubscribe in the past several days and in one instance I was informed that they found my material offensive. As a Black woman in a state like Maine, hell in America, I am well aware that discussions on race are hard. Yet at what point must my reality be blunted to accommodate another’s reality?

Moreover what responsibility do we owe to others when living our truth creates discontent for them? I believe that we are all connected as part of the human family and when we look out not just for ourselves but others, things are simply more harmonious. I believe that a great deal of the tension and stress that is so prevalent in our culture is because we value surface appearances to the detriment of truth. As a result many of us stuff ourselves down to avoid conflict, but eventually there are limits to how much stuffing down we can do and what we stuff down, eventually comes back up.

Anyway, I am sitting and wondering what my next steps are for this space as I have done many times in the past. Someone recently asked me what my plans were for this space and the truth is; I have no idea. In many ways the goals that I had when I started this space are no longer applicable. I have been wondering if it is time to take it all back to the old fashioned journal and say good bye. I don’t feel quite ready for that but when I no longer feel that I can honesty speak my truth in this space, I do have to wonder, is there any point in going on?

Life Update: For regular readers, I did want to give an update on my Dad. He is stable and pain free at present as we wait to hear the final diagnosis. We are starting to deal with the day to day impact of his illness which includes lots of paperwork and phone calls for things like disability payments. As a result, my plans for the e-book are on hold since I am holding down my day job and trying to secure as much freelance work as I can to ensure that my dad’s needs are met in the short run. I did have a couple of readers who pre-ordered and because of life’s interruptions I am offering a refund for anyone who wants one since with everything going on, it’s become clear that rushing to get the book done is a bad idea. Too bad, I can’t get more than 24 hours in a day to get everything accomplished.

Dear Universe, sit down and talk to me now!!

Dear Universe,

Please come and have a seat…now! I know you are busy and all but I have a few things that I need to get off of my chest before I grab a meat cleaver and start chopping away at someone. So please, have a cup of tea, and let’s talk. Ok, I lied, I am the one talking and I need you to listen.

First up, why is it starting to look like my 40’s are going to be an exact repeat of my 30’s? I mean sick parent? For real? We already did this and frankly I am just not in the mood. Oh, I remember how my 30’s started out, smooth sailing and then bam, Ma got that nagging cough that wouldn’t go away and I finally had to press her to go to the doctor. Her primary care physician was a moron, telling her she had pneumonia, of course I just sensed when Ma started coughing up blood that it was a bad scene. Of course we thought she was going to make it, but nooooo, you took her away from us, 5 weeks after I turned 31. So you see; I get a little testy about bad shit happening around my birthday. I swear I do.

These past years haven’t been easy at all, when Ma died, it seemed like the world just stopped for us. She was our light, our cheerleader, our joy. I admit though there are times I look at the seven year old and I feel I am looking at my mom. Did you send Mom back here as my daughter? I wonder about you.

The thing is life has been rough for Pops since Ma died, I mean didn’t you think about the fact that he had spent his entire adult life with Ma? They had 33 years together, not easy for a man to get over that and the fact that he has no interest in any other partners…wow, I wonder if the Man Unit would be like that if I die first. Of course at the rate we are going, I shouldn’t even joke about that since if I live longer than Ma did, I will party like it’s 1999 and I don’t care what year it is.

Anyway let’s get back to Pops; he has spent the past eight years learning how to be on his own. Thank goodness he is no longer using an entire bottle of bleach in a load of laundry. I mean from crying out loud he just learned how to make Jiffy cornbread to go with his Glory Greens (I know, I know, if Ma had a grave she’d be turning in it, think of Pops eating canned greens).

Seriously though for the first time since Ma died, life has been good for all of us, the rifts and disagreements have been put behind us. I was getting so hopeful and damn, you do this? Pops is sick…now? By the way, why is Pops aging so fast? Yeah, I know he’s been a hard living man, but last week when I saw my Pops, a man so bad-assed that Jim Croce’s Bad Bad Leroy Brown could have been about my daddy, I nearly lost it.

By the way, let me thank you since you did at least allow me to keep my shit together while I was in Chicago. I figure the college kid didn’t need to see his Mama losing her shit, though I hear he is quite worried about me. Universe, I don’t know…not sure how much longer I can keep it together to be honest.

I mean last week’s visit wasn’t a death blow to the budget but it’s clear I need to go as often as I can to help out the baby brother who is the only one out there to help Pops. Plus I just want to see Pops as often as possible. If nothing else you taught me with Ma’s illness is not to count on tomorrow. That and the fact the baby bro asked me to come right away is why I didn’t even stop to think about the costs. In fact as you know when I got back to Maine, I told the Man Unit that I will be going back again soon and he didn’t even blink. Never mind that come April 15, our taxes are due and once again, I didn’t save enough, so now the tax man is gonna be on my ass.

I mean isn’t it enough that I have to deal with the enormity of Papa’s situation? Why must it now be coupled with financial woes? Oh, by the way, I don’t appreciate you getting me all psyched to get some new freelance work only to now have that editor not even replying to my emails. Another reason, I hate writing on spec, like I have all the time in the world to write full length pieces only to get no response. I mean in between all this shit, I do still have an ever growing agency to run.

Oh, and I really don’t appreciate that I had to come home to the seven year old having the flu. I mean, the flu, really? But I guess you weren’t done having your fun with me, why did we fail our car inspection? How the fuck am I supposed to come up with $1500+ to get this car fixed? Do you really think this is a great time to max out my credit cards after working so hard to rebuild? I mean sure we could keep renting this mini piece of car but at $180 a week, that’s just going to put us back in the hole and after doing the budget tonight it’s clear that if we don’t get our car fixed ASAP, we are going to be screwed long term. Never mind that the costs of long term car rentals means there is no way I can get back to see Pops soon.

Look, I need a break, and I need it like yesterday. I had been toying with the idea of doing one of those online fundraiser thingies that people do, but let’s be honest no one gives two shits about my shit. I know that’s not completely true but fuck, I guess it’s a pride thing. Plus I don’t want to end up being skewered on that site that talks shit about bloggers. Then there is the fact that now so many people I know in real life read this blog, that the idea of having some Mom at my kid’s school looking at me with pity is just more than I can bear. I don’t know…I just know I need a break. So maybe you can make that editor contact me back and love my work or have some long forgotten relative send me a check.

Sometimes I wonder if I have been a fool, I have spent the past 16 years helping others but I feel like when I need help, it’s a wrap. I am starting to think I should have just stayed in sales and made oodles of cash at least then I wouldn’t have money woes on top of everything else.

I don’t know…are you even listening to me? Wait, where did you go…oh damn!

Sincerely yours,

A sad, falling apart Black Girl in Maine

Celebrate good times…come on!

My seven year old daughter is a quirky kid, granted most kids are quirky but she’s mine so I get to call her quirky. My kid loves to celebrate any and everything. I admit I thought it was a phase but after a couple of years, it has become clear that she likes a good celebration. No special reason needed other than it’s a time to have fun. As a parent, I admit there are days when I really don’t want to have a love party, Saturday spa party or any other damn party. I mean, I am a grown up and the rules of grown up life are that we only get to celebrate at times predetermined by the calendar. So that means birthdays, winter holidays, ya know the list.

This morning though I was reading Dancing Up the Moon: A Woman’s Guide to Creating Traditions that Bring Sacredness to Daily Life and halfway through I had a light bulb moment. Why the hell aren’t we celebrating more? I suspect a great deal of the reason why is that as we get older we put away the fun things of childhood and strive to become “proper” adults. That means fun must be limited, after all we all probably all know that one person who we see having fun on a regular basis and immediately deem them irresponsible. I mean how can they party all the time? It seems so…childish. But is it?

I recently have made the acquaintance of someone who is a party person, he likes to party, from the surface he clearly lives to have fun. I admit after hearing of one of his recent adventures, I was feeling envious. I am restraining myself from asking him, can I be his new BFF? Sure as a single man, it’s easier for him to plan a party than it is for me, but when I look at people like my new quasi-buddy and even my daughter, I see lives lived at full speed. Lives that are lived in the moment, children are the masters of this skill and somehow with all the rules of adulthood, most of us lose that ability. After all, we have to get up early to do the grocery shopping, drop the books off at the library and the general list of minutia that generally fills our days but frankly is far from fun.

I don’t know about you? But I am tired of being mired in the daily minutia of bullshit that frankly isn’t fun at all and makes adulthood and even life look more like one gigantic to-do list rather than a journey. So here’s to fun, granted I live in a small town with a ton of homebodies, so it may take me a while but I am on the hunt to create my own tribe of merry souls eager to rock this party we call life. In the meantime, I will let my seven year old guide me on how to bring more joy into my being.

The end of a chapter

I have been physically capable of becoming a mother for the past twenty-five years, in that time I have been blessed to bring forth two new lives and it’s been a joy. Despite the ups and downs of mothering, to quote Maya Angelou “I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey”. However that chapter in my life is over, done, never to be seen again and it’s exciting.

My kids are exactly thirteen years apart in age and more times than I care to share, I have fielded nosy questions from well-meaning people who assume that my daughter’s earth side arrival was an accident. The funny thing is she was quite planned, I knew that I needed to have some distance between my kids in part so that I could do some much needed growing up and finding myself. It also seems the universe knew that I would need a large reserve of patience to handle my daughter’s larger than life personality.

When our daughter arrived, for several years afterwards I assumed I would eventually add a third child, one who would be closer in age to my daughter. Yet as the years have gone by, the truth is neither I nor the Man Unit have had serious interest in adding another child. I would get what I called the occasional uterus twinges when I saw a baby, but they were just that…twinges. My girl was and is a high spirited child who at times could test the patience of both Jesus and the Buddha. However her spirit is what makes her our special ray of sunshine in a family in introverts with extroverted tendencies. She forces me daily to get out of my own head which is a good thing.

This weekend though with the arrival of the college kid, after a few discussions about my son’s future plans which includes another tour for his music and a possible semester abroad. It hit me that I am done with babies. I have no interest in being pregnant, dealing with diapers or giving up sleep, now that I have again tasted the sweetness of sleeping late on weekends. I am reminded that for all the deliciousness of babies (is there anything sweeter smelling than a baby and baby’s breath?”) I am entering a stage in my life and the life of my partnership where being selfish is possible; where I can realistically juggle not only my needs but my wants as well as the wants and needs of my children. I take this as yet another sign that I am mentally and emotionally finished with the baby days.

So while I am filled with joy at the start of a new chapter, there is a certain sadness when a season in our lives ends even when we make the choice to end it. However like much of life, it will pass.

In this moment…hitting a wall, a plaster wall

It could be hormones, it could that the cold long days of winter are finally settling in or it could simply be reality. I strive to stay in a positive state of mind but for some reason today after getting the mail and receiving my W2 form, my mood has plummeted to ground zero. It’s not as if I didn’t know that I am grossly underpaid for what I do, that’s really no surprise, after all I am the one who does the budget for my agency. We have grown, our budget has grown but we simply aren’t at the place yet where my salary can be increased to be more in line with industry standards. Unless I want to give up all semblance of having a life and do my job and someone else’s which logistically isn’t possible. Trust me, I thought about this during the most recent budget season.

Standing on the cusp of what feels like a milestone birthday, I find myself wondering is there an age where following one’s bliss is simply foolish? Sure, stories abound about people who have made epic life changes at 40 and beyond but is there a point where those stories are just stories with odds slightly better than a winning Powerball ticket?

I attended a gathering recently where I ended up in a serious conversation with a man I know who is a little bit older than me. He told me that the greatest thing for him about being in his 40’s, was learning to accept what he was really capable of and making peace with life as it is. That conversation has stayed with me because on the surface while I was agreeing with him, part of me was wondering could I truly get to that place myself. A place where I accept that the trade-off for working as I do; is that I do truly meaningful work that makes a difference in the lives of many yet the financial rewards are little. At the same time, I have the work/life balance that suits me well, something that I don’t take for granted at all.

The past few years I have done a great deal of work around acceptance but I admit when it comes to money, I get tripped up. Money matters, too much of it can corrupt, but too little of it can make life hard. I see that daily in my work. Then I start to feel guilty when I throw what in essence is a private pity party. After all, I have a house that is brimming with love and all our needs are met. When so many suffer and struggle with getting their bare needs met, it feels shitty to even be discussing this. I mean is seeing my dad a necessity? Is seeing my family and friends a true need? Is it selfish to even worry about retirement when my genetic pool doesn’t favor my living much past 60?

Recently I received the most encouraging message from a new reader who also happens to be someone whose encouragement early in my academic career made me realize what was possible if I dared. Yet in this moment, despite all that I have been working towards with regards to growing my dream of writing into something more than a hobby, I have hit a wall. However as dire as this may all seem, I am going to trust that this wall is made of plaster and not drywall and will simply take a little extra strength to knock down. In the meantime while I am battling with this plaster, I will strive to keep passing the open windows since the alternative is probably not so pleasant.

I realize that posts such as this may seem almost too personal for posting in such an open manner but one thing I strive for here is honesty. I suspect that I am not the only one who grapples with such issues yet too often we rarely feel comfortable having these discussions with others and in some cases even with ourselves. So have no fear, I have no shame in getting raggedy and sharing the journey with you.

Dancing in the dark…bliss versus reality

This time of year for me is always a time of deep reflection and planning for the year ahead; it is both the end of the calendar year and soon will mark the passing of another chronological year for me. However this year I must confess I am in a bit of a funk as I struggle to find that balance between my passion, reality and growing up.

In many ways, I put too much pressure on myself and now it has backfired on me and I don’t know what to do with the resulting mess that is plastered all over my emotional walls. Looking back to a decade ago when I was on the brink of turning 30, I had such high hopes for myself, so many things I hoped to accomplish, so many dreams. Instead my 30’s ushered in real adult life, starting with my mom’s cancer diagnosis not long after turning 30 and her death six weeks after I turned 31. Don’t get me wrong the past decade hasn’t been an entire bust; I finished graduate school and earned my master’s degree which for someone who dropped out of high school isn’t too shabby. Thanks to the generosity of loved ones, the man unit and I were able to become homeowners which it turns out sounds far better in theory than reality when you have two left fingers and find The Home Depot to be a dreary and depressing place. We added a beautiful daughter to our family, I saw my son grow into being a fine young man. I have work that is meaningful and passionate; my childhood dream of becoming a real writer came true.

The reality is that on the checklist of goals I had at 30, I have hit most of the goals except for one that I have continued to ignore but am realizing is no longer possible to ignore. Financial security has eluded me and continues to elude me and it’s starting to bother me. From a financial perspective my 30’s were basically a continuation of my 20’s, except that health insurance was no longer a given.

This morning I woke up thinking of my father who is getting older and basically living hand to mouth and the fact that in the next decade he will probably retire and with no retirement plan, the reality is that my brother and I will have to help him out. His own fragile financial stability was shattered with my mom’s death and resulting bills and thanks to the worldwide economic crisis and his age; he has never regained his footing.

Then there is that pesky reality that hell, I don’t even have a plan for my own retirement one day, so basically I will be working until I die. That thought scares me to death; it scares me to think that I could end up being that little old lady trying to eat cat food to survive. Or burdening my own kids due to my desire to follow my bliss and passion.

It’s in these moments that I realize that I am still quite young enough that I can change the financial course of my life and that history doesn’t have to repeat itself. The problem is that to change the course of my life essentially means leaving the work that I love and the work/life balance that I have that allows me time to indulge my creative side. Earlier this year I received a call from a headhunter about a position that was amazing on paper with an attractive six figure salary and lovely benefits; the only problem is the job would have taken my soul. It was the type of administrative position that I am well qualified to do, but despise the thought of. After my initial excitement about the idea of being in the running for such a high profile position, my soul cried out, don’t do it!!! I listened to my soul as I have done in the past and now am starting to realize that maybe it’s now time to seek out such positions.

I have always loved that the man unit and I have crafted a life that we live on our terms but lately that money thing is weighing heavy on me as yet another year passes and I was unable to visit with family. My seven year old has relatives she has never met, she only just met my brother on Thanksgiving when he came out here and she is seven years old! Sadly it is our turn to visit family since they all last visited us but living life on our terms never seems to allow for travel and it’s starting to scare me how fast the years are flying by.

So as I do the dance of struggle in these dark days of December I grapple with the question of what next? I do know that if I move on to a different type of job the demands pretty much will take away the simple joys such as being able to write publicly to the extent that I do. There will be a cost to my family, but what really what costs more? Living joyously and presently with just enough or making the sacrifice and doing the adult thing and dedicating myself fully and maybe even miserably to achieve the dream of financial stability. Of course I sometimes wonder is financial stability in this ever changing world even accessible to the masses.

Deep thoughts and much planning lay ahead for me.

Black Girl in Maine

Musings of a black woman living in the nation's whitest state

Category Archives: Midlife Changes