Gone

This morning, I spoke to my friend Ann. She and her husband Jon live in Pacific Palisades, CA, an area currently being entirely wiped out by very unexpected fires. I texted her to find out if they were OK and she called me back. We usually just text each other back and forth. Not today. She called and started sobbing. The home that they lived in for 25+ years is likely gone. She said they were receiving messages from their alarm company that there was activity at their window and then activity inside the house...They realized quickly that the activity was the fire. 

I want to tell you about my friendship with Ann. She's one of the people that I met online. We followed each other on Twitter (back when it was a lovely community forum.) We instantly connected and eventually became real friends. And yes, we've met in person - three times! My daughter and I have had breakfast with her, she and Jon came to my son's play in LA and they also came to our house for dinner when they visited Wisconsin a couple of years ago. She's just a super genuine, intelligent and funny person that I adore. 

I've rarely felt this helpless. I told her that I don't have any adequate words to express my empathy. Yes, she and her husband are safe, but how do you start over after 25+ years? Where do you even begin? How do you have faith in the world? 

Say some prayers for the people of California tonight. Yes, there are celebrities that have lots of money and many homes, but there are also salt-of-the-earth people like Ann & Jon who are about to have the worst year of their life. 😔

*The photo above is from a video taken this afternoon in Ann & Jon's neighborhood. Their house, or what's left of it, is two blocks away. 

Good Thoughts Only

If you know me, you know that I despise Donald Tr*mp. I can't even type his full name. I hate everything about him and think he will, once again, be a terrible president. I even put some energy into working on Kamala's campaign by knocking on doors. I truly did my best, but we didn't win. For some incredibly sad reason, millions of Americans decided it was OK to elect a felon, racist, homophobe, xenophobe, sexual predator, narcissist...the list goes on and on.

Yesterday, January 6th, was a rough day, mostly because every single news outlet rehashed the events of January 6th 2021, a day that made me angrier than any other politically-related moment ever. It was a full-out attack on democracy and he-who-shall-not-be-named egged them all on and then called them heroes and hostages and will probably pardon a bunch of them. It takes a felon to pardon a felon. 

But that's not my point here. I HATE that he's going to be next president, but it's going to happen whether or not I whine and mope about it. Therefore, I've chosen NOT to doomscroll and dive into negative podcasts and news reports and tweets and Instagram posts. Unlike eight years ago, when I needed some affirmation that the world was batshit crazy, I just can't go there. I know it's crazy. And I'll do something about it at some point, just not today.

In the meantime, I'm doing anything and everything that is NOT negative energy. I'm watching great shows on TV. I'm going to see great movies. I'm discovering new music. I'm volunteering for various non-profits. I'm working out. I'm watching sports. I'm playing pickleball. I'm walking my dog. I'm trying to find reasons to laugh. 

I have to. Me, being miserable, helps nobody. I'm going out of my way to avoid being aware of our country being led by a lunatic. I even scheduled a mini vacation to Vegas on inauguration weekend. I'm hoping and praying that smarter, better and cooler heads will prevail in the long run. I know it'll be a shit show for a while, but I'll just be over here ignoring everything. 

Grudge Holding

I'm a bit of a grudge holder, especially when it comes to gift giving. I know, I know, I should give gifts and not expect anything in return, but I can't help myself. Let me be clear, I only expect a thank you, but if I don't get it...at least in person, or via text, I hold a grudge. 

There are two gifts I gave in the last couple of months - one a graduation gift and one a Christmas/thank you and goodbye - that I've heard nothing about. I should let it go. Both were money, but that seemed like the best choice for both people. 

If I'm being honest, here's what it is: I'm bothered when people don't act the way I would act. I would have at least sent a text or a thank you note. I'll move on, someday. But I can't help but think differently about those people. Sigh. 

Unfriend

When I first joined social media - Facebook, specifically - I made a mistake. I friended too many people. I was too excited and wanted to join in on the fun. Instead of letting it happen organically (is that even a thing on social media?), I jumped right into the rabbit hole of friend searching. Everyone was a possibility - grade school friends, high school friends, college friends, tennis friends, parents of my kids' friends. It worked for a while...until it didn't. Here's the funny thing about real life - it often doesn't translate to social media. People who might be polite in person, can be downright rude on social media. I blame the lack of writing skills. Let me stop here and say that I do NOT consider myself a good writer. I can confidently express myself and filter out the negative things that I really want to say. For others, that's a huge challenge. 

Here's why I call my "friending fest" a mistake: I no longer want to share things about my life with some of these people. As I've mentioned before, I believe that posting on social media, no matter the platform, is giving away a little bit of yourself. I do like to share experiences and random thoughts, which is why I'm active on social media. What bothers me is when I run into people with whom I've had zero interaction and they say something like: "Wow, you go out to eat A LOT." It's said in a judgmental tone...to which I take great offense. It implies they're living their life better than I am, which is not true. Have you ever gone out to eat? It's fantastic. You get a giant list of food which you can order. Somebody else cooks it, brings it to you and does the dishes. What could be better? 

Anyway, Facebook has this thing where if you look at it on a desktop, which I do every day, it tells you whose birthday it is. Often, I will see a name that I haven't seen, thought about or definitely spoken to in ages. And then I think: "Why am I Facebook friends with this person when we're not even friends in real life?" So sometimes, I do this really mean thing: I wish them a very happy birthday...and then I unfriend them. 😬 Maybe they love what I post on Facebook, but they never interact with me - online or in person. Why am I giving away pieces of me to this person who I barely know? I will also say that sometimes people reach out privately and tell me they like things that I post. That's really cool and I will almost never unfriend them because they've made the effort to interact. 

I have made some actual friends via social media - a couple of whom I've never met in person. But they interact with me regularly. I used to think it was weird and then I thought of pen pals, which used to be a thing when I was young. You got this name from somewhere - church or a magazine or...who knows. And you wrote this person letters and they wrote you back. Sometimes, you'd meet them in person. Anyway, I consider some of my "social media friends" as digital pen pals. 

I've decided I might become more aggressive about unfriending people. I'm a super sensitive person and I deserve the right to decide with whom I'll be friends - in person or online. 

FOMO, JOMO & Rotting

Young people are funny. Their expressions are funny and so are their acronyms. By now, we're all familiar with FOMO - the fear of missing out. Thanks to social media, it's quite prevalent these days. Everybody knows what everyone else is doing, whether or not they're together. In fact, FOMO has, unfortunately, led to a seriously high rate of depression in young people. Being young has always been hard. But it seems harder now when we are all spectators to each other's lives. Now you know when there's a gathering to which you're not invited. It used to be respectfully private. Sadly, that's no longer the case, unless someone possesses a decent enough amount of self-awareness to keep their get-together off the 'Gram. (Instagram, for those of you not up on the lingo.) 😉

There's an antonym for FOMO of which I'm a really big fan: JOMO, the joy of missing out. Have you ever RSVP'd yes to an invitation or an event and started really dreading it as it approached? In Wisconsin, this happens fairly often because when it's cold and dark out, the idea of dressing up and going outside can be daunting. Therefore, JOMO, which happens when you suddenly can't attend or something was blissfully canceled, can be pretty great. 

There is a tendency, to participate far too often in JOMO. You can get pretty good at turning down invitations and eventually, you won't receive very many. Like everything in life, JOMO should be used in moderation. I sometimes have to make plans or accept invitations even when I don't really feel like it. I rarely regret it because live lived in person, not online, is always better, even if not always prettier. 

And now for our final term - Rotting. We used to call this laying around or being lazy, or being a couch potato. It all means doing nothing of any great value. Like JOMO, it should be used in moderation, but often involves bingeing a TV show or reading a great book in one sitting. In my opinion (IMO), if you're reading a book, it's never bad or to be considered rotting. To me, reading is always a worthwhile endeavor.  However, I do appreciate that the term "rotting" implies something kind of gross, which might help people avoid it. 

*Yep, I missed a day - so sue me. 🤷

What Day Is It?

There's a lot of talk right now about how the time between Christmas and New Year's is a sort of calendar wasteland. Nobody knows what day it is and all motivation is gone and people sit around and, as the young kids say, rot. 

I will tell you that the early days of retirement are like this. Although I am only semi-retired, having started a part-time job about eight years ago, I realized that my days were anchored by my husband's job...from which he retired, eleven months ago. During the first few months of his retirement, I felt totally lost. It was like I had lost a limb. I floundered, for a long time. I've only recently started to get things back on track, mostly by scheduling things - volunteer gigs, walking the dog, lunch with friends, pickleball. 

Turns out, I love structure and retirement is the opposite of that. I guess I'm just not cut out to be fully retired. Being an old person is really going to suck. 

Hi. It's Me Again

It's New Year's Day - January 1st, 2025. Some people create New Year's resolutions. I never do, mostly because I don't need another reason to think poorly of myself. I'm bad at a lot of things, but I'm very good at self-criticism and loathing. It's a bad habit - perhaps the worst of all of my bad habits. 

But I've notice some people creating wish lists or bingo cards of things they want to do in the coming year. It's sort of inspired me to create a goal. It can't be impossible like "eat healthy." Ugh, the worst. Or "exercise more." Boring. I'll work on those things without having to "be accountable" which is a buzz phrase that I dislike. 

Here's mine: I'm going to write every day. I used to write a lot. This is one of several blogs I've started and just left hanging with no end in sight. So, I'm going to pop in here daily (fingers crossed) and write some things. I realized recently that I've missed writing. I used to write great posts on social media but haven't been inspired in a long, long time. Lots of reasons - life, in general - which, if I'm being honest, is not really that challenging. But also social media has changed. It used to be that if you post something everyone would see it. But now the ALGORITHM runs everything and not everybody sees everything and so posts don't get the engagements they used to get. 

Anyway, I have lots of feelings and have had occasional thoughts about social media posts related to those feelings. 2024 was a year of change and self-reflection. I went through some health things - threw out my back, breast biopsy, rotator cuff tendinitis, PT, PT and more PT, two skin cancer removal procedures. The list is long and boring. I'm quite blessed to, mostly, be OK. Who knows what 2025 will throw at me. Hopefully it'll be blissfully boring. 

But what those health challenges made me do was wear sunscreen and reevaluate friendships. I found that people with whom I thought I was close didn't really care much for me....or, at least, didn't put forth the effort. I've never been good at goodbyes and I started to realize that there are some friendships that are basically over and it's time I moved on. We recently decided to leave our tennis club after 19+ years. We realized that we were spending a LOT of money every month and not socializing, dining or swimming at the club. We basically had no friends there - just friendly acquaintances. I'm guessing that we won't be missed. We did join a new club and early on, the people were very friendly and welcoming. I hope that continues but I still got VERY nervous to do my first activity there. Turns out that middle school angst never really goes away. 

Back to those lapsed friendships: If I'm being honest again, some of them might be because I called some people out in a social media post, post-election, for voting for a terrible person. I don't regret that, but it certainly did sort out the "chaff" from my friend list. Then again, I was overly enthusiastic about "friending" people in the early days of social media which sometimes comes back to haunt me. I'll share a secret here that nobody will see because nobody reads this blog: Every day Facebook tells me whose birthday it is. Often, it's someone with whom I have zero connection. I never see them, we aren't real life friends and they never comment on my posts. So, I've started to wish them Happy Birthday and then unfriend them. Is that mean? I don't care. Time to move forward and not look back. 

I have a theory: Posting on social media is like giving away a little piece of yourself. I love sharing on social media but I'm VERY cautious about it. I believe that you should be careful what you post and with whom you share it and, if it's not treated with respect, disconnect from those people. It's what you'd do in real life, right? 

Well, that's all for today. Wow, this was really cathartic. If you actually find this, hello. 👋