I was amused a few years back when GenZ declared the Millennials to be uncool because they couldn’t move on from their side parts or skinny jeans. Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth!
Fortunately, my generation (early GenX) had already experienced the abject humiliation of being labeled “uncool” by those same Millennials years ago. As someone who is closer to 60 than 40 these days, it’s been a long time since I’ve looked to teenagers for fashion validation.
What I found particularly funny about the declaration banning skinny jeans is that, regardless of which type of denim the fashion police have declared in or out of style in a given year, those of us who have cycled through all the trends understand that the answer to “which jeans look best” is both subjective and constantly changing.
An Integral and Authentic Part of My Wardrobe
During most of my corporate career, I worked in an office and dressed a step up from business casual. Skirts and dresses were the norm, so jeans were reserved for Fridays and weekends. Like a lot of remote workers, I took a hard turn into extreme casual wear during the pandemic, but am now trying to find a balance. In fact, after too many months spent lounging around in yoga pants and the like, I made it one of my New Year’s resolutions to put on real pants each day!
I’m proud to say that I’ve been successful with that one (I adhere to the SMART goal framework, so achievability is key)! … In my world, that means that I’m generally reaching for a pair of jeans.
And now I’m going to make a very controversial statement: There’s a time and a place (and a potentially stylish outfit) to be made from nearly every kind of denim. Not the limited options those GenZ arbiters of “cool” would have you believe.
Bear with me here… In an effort to sell the Average American Woman way more denim than she actually needs, fashion designers have left no trend—no cut, wash, rise or embellishment—untried over the past several decades. So which pair will look best on you is NOT going to be determined by some Instagram influencer. Rather, the most attractive pair will take into consideration your age, your body, your attitude, the occasion you’re dressing for, and perhaps most important, the rest of your outfit (top, shoes, etc.).
End of hypothesis.
For example, cool or un-, I will never get rid of all of my skinny jeans. That’s because I have a considerable number of boots, and skinny jeans are the only jeans that will balance out an oversized top and tuck into tall boots. And in January, in Minnesota, a cozy bulky sweater, jeans and boots will never not be in style.
BUT, that being said, I also have plenty of other denim styles in my rotation: flared jeans, baggy jeans, straight-leg, cropped, wide leg, distressed, embellished, hemmed and unhemmed, and the previously lauded flannel-lined jeans.
Which pair I’m going to wear is dependent on all of those other factors mentioned above, but ALL are in the rotation and are an authentic part of my wardrobe.
Curse of the Crop Top!
I think I speak for most women who have given birth or are over 35 when I say that we’re pretty much over the cropped-everything trend. Really, enough already! Yes, a cropped top can look nice—when paired with the right bottoms, but most people my age aren’t comfortable flashing their bellybutton outside of the gym or a beach.
Crop tops are definitely one of those styles that are tricky to manage if you’re older than 30 or have given birth—and the last couple of years it’s been nearly impossible to find tops that are both cute and work appropriate. So, if I’m wearing a shirt that is slightly cropped, I will pair it with mid- or high-rise jeans to compensate, keeping my bellybutton covered. Likewise, if I’m wearing a longer, tunic-style top, I want to pair that with minimal bulk around my waist. Yet I couldn’t always tell, by glancing at a pair, which jeans would work. Finding the right bottoms to wear with a specific top frustrated me, because—invariably—I would end up trying on several pairs each time, in search of the right fit.
But this is where my jeanius idea comes in…
Necessity is the Mother of Invention
That led me to my *new* labeling system for denim. I bought a pack of plastic size disks ($9.99 for 30 on Amazon) and labeled them by rise, length and style. Voila! I now can grab a pair and know exactly how they will fit, saving me time and irritation. (In retrospect, I could have done this with cardboard tags as well, which would have been a bit more environmentally friendly.)
While doing this may seem over-the-top, it’s already saved me more time than I spent making the labels. And I’m a BIG fan of anything that saves me time and frustration. So, I wanted to share this hack—in case any of you find it helpful (and can thereby validate that I’m actually “authentically clever” vs. just weirdly compulsive.) 🤣
(I ended this blog post with the laughing emoji, because that was declared uncool by GenZ around the same time as the skinny jeans and side parts… That Stormy is such a rebel.) 🤣🤣🤣
Earlier I posted about how my goal this year was to be Authentic. Well, one aspect of my life that is coming under my personal authenticity scrutiny is my wardrobe. Like many of you, the last few years have been hard on it.
Pre-pandemic: Something for every occasion
I worked (mostly) in an office, took several business trips a year, took Pilates classes, had an average social life with one or two “fancy” events per year. My closet contents reflected this pretty well, with lots of wool skirts, cashmere sweaters and tights. (Did I mention it gets cold here?)
Pandemic: What day is it?
Each morning, I woke up asking myself, what day is this? Our three-year Groundhog Day meant 90% of my wardrobe (and jewelry) remained untouched while the following were in heavy rotation (depending on the season):
Athleisure
Jeans (but only the comfy ones)
Shorts
T-shirts
Tank tops
Sundresses/t-shirt dresses
In the winter, I expanded my “outdoor” wardrobe, buying flannel-lined jeans, flannel-lined joggers and multiple hats (after living my whole life as someone who resisted winter hats due to my bangs). Just an aside here: If you live in a cold climate, flannel-lined pants are a game changer. If you like to go walking outside, buy them, you won’t regret it.
And, as someone whose shoe collection consisted mostly of high heels and boots, I also bought more flats (sneakers and sandals).
Post-Pandemic: Accepting that my old life is forever gone
As life has slowly returned to its “new normal,” I recognize that my go-forward lifestyle will probably never align with my pre-pandemic wardrobe. Over the last few years, I’ve offloaded quite a bit to Dress for Success, Goodwill and the local consignment shop, but there are still items in my closet that haven’t seen daylight since before the pandemic. Since I never quite know what lies ahead, I’m reluctant to give away too much. After all, you never know when KitKat might need to borrow something blingy for a Taylor Swift Drag Brunch! (Despite my low-key everyday appearance, I own a surprising number of sequins.)
But what should my wardrobe look like? That is, what is my personal authentic style? I could heed the advice of the endless “How to dress over 50” articles that flood my FB feed, but as a content creator myself, I know that the people writing these articles are just aiming for clicks and so I give them no special credence. Most of them highlight do’s and don’ts that one must adhere to in order to “age gracefully.” Screw that.
What does an Authentic Wardrobe look like, anyway?
If there is any benefit to growing older (and there is) it’s primarily this—not caring so much about others’ opinions. I don’t want to age gracefully; I want to age defiantly—which is another way of saying I want to be authentic, I guess.
When you hold onto these weird pants for years, thinking “Will I ever wear these again?”
And voilà, an art show opening appears on your calendar.
Authenticity means that I have my own opinions about what I think looks good on me, and if it doesn’t meet the style standards of the fashion influencers, I don’t really care (that’s where the defiant part comes in). Case in point: Look at the red carpet photos for any Met Gala and you will always find plenty of celebrities wearing ridiculous outfits that were carefully curated and assembled by a team of stylists. But those who convey true style are invariably those who look most comfortable in their skin. So that’s what I’m trying to achieve…
When my kids were growing up and immersed in the middle school culture of cliques—cool kids and wannabes, I explained that as you get older you realize that the coolest people are the ones who are too busy doing cool things to worry about whether they look or act cool. I have a weirdly shaped body—no really, I do!—that I have come to accept, but also must accommodate. For example, I have broad shoulders and a large ribcage, but small breasts (which rules out most button-down shirts or any top or blazer that is very fitted). I also have unusually wide feet, which means I will never buy ballet flats or penny loafers, even if I think they look cute on other people.
When I turned 40, I was more concerned with dressing appropriately for my age, but at this stage of my life, I pretty much know what works and what doesn’t (that’s the graceful part—I’m not going to fight Mother Nature). However, I will probably continue to wear overalls, camo prints, bikinis and cargo pants regardless of what’s in vogue or recommended for “women of a certain age.” So, I guess “gracefully defiant” is Stormy’s authentic style.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a bit of a New Year’s junkie. Looking back through the archives, you’ll find a post dedicated to the topic of renewal nearly every January (and a few others sprinkled in here and there at other times of the year). While I tend to take an “agile” approach to personal development, with new Stormy upgrades being released every couple of weeks, I really love the idea of a completely clean slate and dream about what I’d like to achieve in the coming year.
Merriam-Webster’s choice seems to be in recognition of people’s increasing desire for authentic human connections in a year when AI became omnipresent. I think they are on track with that one. When you start reading AI-generated content, it doesn’t take long to realize that there isn’t a real person behind it. An “AI Assistant” has even been added as a feature to WordPress (the software I use for creating this blog), but let me assure you, since writing is therapy for me, I’ll never outsource this blog to AI… Meanwhile, indulge me by going waaaaay back for a moment, as I explain…
Why I chose authentic
Young Stormy started working at Blue Cross & Blue Shield at the tender age of 18. It felt like I was on an alien planet. To meet the dress code, I wore a skirt, blouse and heels with nylons(!) every day. I routinely interacted with people who had mortgages, kids and high cholesterol. My job duties included a variety of mind-numbing clerical tasks—making photocopies of huge stacks of insurance applications, for example; ultimately culminating in my last position: finding out why people needed health insurance so we could deny them coverage for that very thing. Ha! … Well, admittedly, that may be a cynical explanation of my role as an assistant health history underwriter, but not by much. Needless to say, I hated my job.
While working there, I signed up for various professional development seminars that were offered on our corporate campus (they were free and considered a legitimate way to get out of doing the job that I hated, so…) One of these was for women to learn how to talk so they would be taken seriously in business. I remember the instructor specifically addressing that annoying thing some women do? Where their voices go up at the end of every statement? Making everything they say sound like a question? As though they are apologizing for having a thought and expressing it?
Thankfully, I don’t think nearly as many women speak like that these days—I guess there has been progress made against the patriarchy since the 80s after all. But if you’re my age or older, you’ve experienced that speech pattern before. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make by reminiscing about my early working days is this: A young working woman in the mid-80s was not expected, nor encouraged, to be “authentic.” Far from it. We were encouraged, nay expected, to “fit in.”
“Fake it ’til you make it”
“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have”
“Play the game”
“Keep up appearances”
“Never let them see you sweat”
With standards like these, it’s no wonder “imposter syndrome” became a thing.
A shift in the corporate perspective
Nowadays, there’s more of a focus on authenticity in the workplace. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have led to greater awareness of the many adaptations (code-switching, passing and assimilation) that my generation took as non-negotiable. Obviously, Stormy trying to fit into a corporate setting as an 18-year-old, American-born, cis-gender, white, middle-class woman didn’t require as many mental gymnastics as some of my colleagues. Over the years, I’ve had coworkers who were gay and closeted, experiencing gender dysphoria, or hiding physical or mental health conditions from their employer, and I wouldn’t wish that kind of daily mental strain on my worst enemy. And I think most people would agree that greater acceptance of diversity is a good thing—but we still have a ways to go.
However, while I still have a non-conformist streak in me that 30 years of corporate indoctrination has been unable to squelch completely, I also don’t think every personal expression or preference requires “accommodations.” I draw a distinction between forcing someone with naturally tightly coiled hair to chemically straighten it and expecting someone to not curse excessively in the workplace. (And before my past colleagues chime in to bust me, yes, I’ve been known to curse in the workplace… However, while this may be an authentic trait, it’s not one I’m particularly proud of, so if an employer called me out on it, I would have to agree that it was reasonable for them to expect better language.) Likewise, I hate making small talk with strangers, but it’s an unspoken expectation when talking to clients, so I learned to suck it up and chit chat as required. I guess what I’m saying here is the good side of “fake it ’til you make it” is leaning into things that don’t necessarily come naturally and developing new skills and resiliency as a result… at its best, learning to embrace discomfort promotes personal growth.
So back to my story…
At some point in my 40s, I finally had enough confidence in my own professional competence to relax and let my authentic self show through a bit more. At that point, I knew stuff. I was good at my job. I had made up for my initial educational deficiency with a bachelor’s degree, an MBA and an assortment of certifications. I had managed work teams and million-dollar budgets. I could finally “own” my authenticity, right?
Well, for a decade, I did just that. However, the last several years, I found myself facing a new problem—one that was the opposite of the issue I faced in my youth. As a job-seeker in my 50s, I was now in the uncomfortable position of trying to downplay my experience (so as to indirectly downplay my age). This was causing a bit of cognitive dissonance: On the one hand, I was ready to fully “own” my history, and on the other, I was painfully aware that age discrimination is real. And hiring within my chosen field (Marketing) is even more youth oriented.
Keeping my resume to two pages was difficult. While some experience was obviously obsolete (press check, anyone?), whole jobs—even one where I was the department head by the time I left the company—were omitted due to them being too long ago. In casual networking conversations, I dreaded the question “How old are your kids?” Peers with teenagers would look baffled when I confessed that two of my three kids were in their 30s. Starting my family early means that I now have more time and energy to devote to work and, when it comes to technology, my skills are light years ahead of my “digital native” children. Nonetheless, I couldn’t find roles comparable in pay or responsibility to those I previously held. Despite feeling 33 inside, during interviews with younger executives, I felt like a relic. And an expensive one at that. Like Adam & Eve’s pizza cutters… queue the Antiques Roadshow!
That’s why I was happy to find a new job situation last year with a professional services firm. Suddenly, my years of experience were regarded as an asset again, not a liability. I no longer felt as though I would be penalized for being authentic. I could breathe again.
Who is Stormy?
So, as I look to the year ahead, I can finally figure out who I authentically am—and who I authentically want to be—without worrying about anyone else’s impressions, expectations or judgement. And, given my fondness for New Year’s resolutions, a bunch of ambitious goals have emerged from those two questions, “Who are you? And who do you want to be?” (For example, someone who is healthy, active, spiritually grounded, creative, etc., etc., etc.) So, while I’m not trying to boil the ocean and don’t plan to achieve my personal version of nirvana all at once, 2024 will be about moving closer to my ideal self. And my blog posts will probably reflect this larger theme, as well. But I promise you that I’ll share my adventures, observations, and defeats in addition to my successes 🤞🏻, in the spirit of keeping it all “authentic.”
Postscript: It’s not lost on me that I’m writing about authenticity on a blog that was created under a pseudonym! But in Stormy’s case, authenticity comes with some inconsistency—that’s what makes life interesting, after all! (All things in moderation…even moderation.) 😉
A lot has happened since the last time you’ve heard from me, but if I’m honest, most of the transformation has taken place inside my own head. Don’t get me wrong, there have been real changes as well. Most notably, the loss of my 96-year-old mother this fall. As you may recall, we had a somewhat stormy relationship the past 15 years or so (maybe that’s why I subconsciously chose that nom de plume?) so there were a lot of emotions tied to her death.
Two years ago, I wrote a New Year’s blog about her and how our relationship was continuing to evolve with her dementia. Since then, I’ve been able to see things from my mom’s perspective and understand just how difficult the last decade was for her. My mom essentially gave us “two week’s notice” before her death, so we had time to gather around her and say goodbye. I’m happy to report that her last words to me were, “You’re wonderful,” and I’m grateful that the enduring memories I now have of my mom are ones of love and gratitude.
So, what is the transformation that has taken place? Well, it’s closely related to my mom’s death. You see, I’ve carried the stress of my mom’s dementia for several years (and my dad’s dementia for several years before that). And I’m not the caregiver type (just ask Oskar or my kids). During the busy parenting years, I often thought about the future with anticipation. I fantasized about what it would be like when the kids left home, and I was retired. Just imagine! All that time to do whatever I want! In reality, when my little chickies finally flew the nest, I struggled with it—but work and worrying about my parents quickly filled the void. In fact, caregiving for my parents has taken up a good portion of my mindshare for more than a decade. Until this October, that is.
AKA: The Month from Hell. October was a blur of professional and family obligations (with some work commitments serving as a welcome distraction from my mom’s decline), as well as some family conflict, but once the dust settled after my mother’s funeral, I found myself bereft (that’s one of those words that doesn’t show up very frequently in daily conversation, but is nonetheless appropriate):
bereft \bih-REFT\ adjective. 1: deprived or robbed of the possession or use of something — usually used with of. 2: lacking something needed, wanted, or expected — used with of. 3: suffering the death of a loved one: bereaved.
Merriam-Webster
When November arrived, I wasn’t on a client engagement and my mom was gone. There was nowhere I had to be and nothing I had to do. I felt utterly purposeless.
Ever since I left corporate life in 2019, I feel like I’ve been in transition. I’ve been consulting and signed on with a company of like-minded marketers in May. I consider myself lucky to have found a professional “home,” but the very nature of Fractional CMO consulting means there will continue to be gaps in my employment. I discovered with my mom’s death that too much time (to contemplate my past and my future) is not a good thing for Stormy.
When you’re a deadline-driven, admittedly high-strung, self-diagnosed ADHD individual and have spent decades putting your dreams on the back burner, there comes a time when… you… just… forget… what they are. After all, I’d been a caregiver—first to my children and then to my parents—for more than 30 years. I earned two degrees while working and raising kids… Multi-tasking was my middle name! But it turns out that when so many of the external responsibilities that defined me fell away—Daughter, Student, Mom, Boss, Employee—all I was left with is a very uncomfortable vacuum. And Stormy, like nature, abhors a vacuum, so Stormy, unlike Nature, fills it with anxiety and existential dread.
This led me to do some Serious Thinking, a process to which I devoted several weeks. The first realization I had was that my mom’s death significantly changed things. Suddenly, I had both the additional time and mental bandwidth for tackling something new. Second, I realized that I needed to find a way to fill my days with purposeful activity (in addition to PT consulting) if I wanted to be happy. While taking care of my mom had been extremely stressful, it was also rewarding, because I knew I was doing something necessary and worthwhile. Now, I was presented with an opportunity to do something purposeful that was also enjoyable—I just had to discover what that is. Third, I realized that life is short. I know people say that all the time, but there are specific moments where one really internalizes that understanding and this was one of those times. After consulting with our financial advisor, I concluded that my life circumstances would never be more conducive to me “doing my own thing” than they are right now.
This article is actually just a stripped-down description of the many changes I’ve undergone this year. It’s been a big mental shift for me and feels like a new phase of my life, so I can’t tell you exactly what my future will look like. But if nothing else, it means you’ll probably see more blogging from me in 2024 (for me, writing = therapy). I have high hopes for the new year, and you know I can’t resist sharing my resolutions (accountability is everything), so plan to see more updates soon.
On Friday, as I was anxiously counting down the final moments of this dismal year, I got the news from my husband that Betty White had died. “Really?!” I asked, while already fully believing it was true… After all, I was well aware that people were looking forward to her 100th birthday in a couple of weeks, and it’s really not a stretch to wrap your head around a 99-year-old dying rather suddenly.
My next thought was, “Well, that’s just apropos for 2021. Another good and positive force in the universe…dead.”
The previous day, I had been visiting another Betty—my 94-year-old mother—in her memory care unit, where she’s been since the pandemic first started. (Her memory had been waning for a period of time before we were able to forcibly move her from her assisted living apartment to memory care in 2020. I can’t tell you how lucky we were to get her into a care unit immediately prior to everything locking down.)
On the day I visited Betty G. (aka Mom), her dementia had her very confused and weepy. Her younger sister (her only sibling) had died a couple of weeks earlier, and she remembered that loss and was feeling it acutely. Since my dad died in 2017, she’s lost numerous other loved ones of her generation, and the few that remain are mostly incapacitated in memory care units and nursing homes, unable to visit with an old friend who would greatly benefit from it.
As my mom sobbed on my shoulder, I hugged her and told her that she was okay. I told her she was safe and cared for in her apartment and that even if she didn’t remember our visits, we were visiting her regularly. I reminded her that she had spent Christmas Eve with me and my family and Christmas Day with my brother and that we would continue to see her and take care of her. Over and over, she thanked me for being a good daughter and told me how much she loves me.
This may not seem that remarkable, but it really is. If you’ve followed my family saga (and unfortunately anyone who has had to interact with me over the last 10 years has heard versions of it), you’d know that we’ve gone through hell and back with our aging parents. I first wrote about this here in 2013. As my dad’s dementia progressed, we wanted my parents to downsize and move from their house to an assisted living community where my mom would have help caring for my dad. She flat out refused. Over and over again. We tried hiring in-home care. She fired them. To say this put a strain on our relationship is an understatement. It felt like we were at war.
Betty G’s sense of humor is often hidden these days, but occasionally shines through.
After numerous health emergencies, we finally had an intervention with my mother (and got a social worker to moderate the discussion). This is referred to in our family as the “Ill-Fated Meeting” or IFM for short. It ended with my mom basically telling us kids to all go to hell, that she regretting having us and didn’t care if she ever saw us again. I’m not exaggerating. She hit us. She spit at us. I had never seen anything like it. She more or less told us that we were irrelevant, that she valued her possessions more than her relationship with her children, she didn’t care about the impact her behavior had on the rest of us, ad nauseam.
Afterward, in shock, my disowned siblings and I went to the local bar and consoled each other while dredging up the worst memories from our childhood. My mom had always been a very controlling person while raising us, and we all had our personal issues with her. For me, it was lack of support in me wanting to go to college and a very outdated view on women’s roles. Her only aspirations for me were to get married and have kids. She would have supported me becoming a “stewardess” for a short career before marriage (but only because she thought that was a glamorous occupation and was hoping for some travel benefits).
Anyone who knows me will laugh at the image of Stormy as a flight attendant (so much for the “friendly skies”). However, I was lucky compared to my older sibs who experienced an even more domineering parent. My sister can tell you about a Battle Royale that erupted over addressing envelopes, for example. By the time my younger brother and I were teens (numbers 8 & 9), my mother had nearly “given up” on child-rearing, so we had considerably more freedom than the older kids.
After the IFM, my dad’s health continued to deteriorate. With each hospitalization, we’d try to get the hospital to intervene and require that he be released to a care facility. They had a note in his medical record that my mom’s insistence on caring for my dad alone was bordering on “elder abuse,” but we were helpless to change it without going to court and claiming her incompetent. Finally, after a terrible 91st birthday in which my weakened father fell multiple times, we kids hired an ambulance to transport my dad to a nearby senior facility and had him admitted to hospice. We drove my mom over to be with him—with no intention of letting her return to their home.
This was in December of 2017. Dad went straight into hospice and we moved my mother—completely against her will—into an assisted living (AL) unit. We had given her a week’s notice to prepare, but she must not have believed we’d actually defy her because she didn’t pack a single thing. Since she refused to cooperate with us, we decided which of her belongings to move with her. (And believe me, deciding what items from to move from a three-bedroom house stuffed with 70 years of accumulation was no easy task). We didn’t move her car along with her. Having seen her vulnerability to scams and increasing confusion around how to use her computer, we didn’t let her have that either.
My mom was furious. She threatened to call the cops. She threatened to call a lawyer. We told her that there was nothing legally stopping her from moving herself back home, knowing that she didn’t have the mental wherewithal to pick up the phone and coordinate such a move. It was basically every senior’s worst nightmare of their children dictating their future, and we didn’t want it to be that way. We literally had no other options.
My dad was in hospice for two weeks before he died of congestive heart failure. My mother was devastated. They had been married for 70 years and had met as teenagers. My dad was a wonderful man. Her loss (and our loss) was profound.
For approximately two more years, my mom lived unhappily in her AL apartment. We would visit her, but the visits would often devolve into screaming matches with her insisting that she wanted to move back home. Her memories were completely distorted. She couldn’t recall any of my dad’s falls or hospitalizations, or her own hospitalizations for that matter. She didn’t recall the years of us begging her to choose a senior apartment, so we wouldn’t be forced into doing what we ultimately were forced to do. In that stage of her early dementia, her recollection was that she and my dad were doing just fine living on their own and were blissfully happy until her terrible children intervened with the intention of taking control and running off with all their stuff.
In younger days…a rare moment of relaxation
An aside on that: My parent were solidly middle class people raising nine children. They couldn’t afford to send any of us to college. They had no valuable possessions that we were waiting to get our hands on. Cleaning out the house was a painful process that took us over a year to complete because we were so disheartened and depressed about the situation. We each took a few items that were sentimental or useful (you can never have too much Corningware in my book), but if my mother knew how many truckloads of her valued possessions ended up at Goodwill or in a dumpster, she would have been appalled.
As my mother’s dementia continued to progress, we had to forcibly move her again into memory care (with more threatening to call the cops on us, etc.). Due to these experiences and the resulting strained relationship with her kids, half of my siblings don’t visit with her on a regular basis. Yet, she has no recollection of all this ill will and their negligence is breaking her heart.
Well, you’re probably thinking, this Betty story is depressing as hell. What’s Stormy’s point?
Here it is. We all get to choose which “Betty” we want to be.
Watching various tributes and retrospectives of Betty White’s life, a few themes emerged as to what made her so beloved. Granted, she had a phenomenally long and successful career, but that’s not why so many are celebrating her life. Instead, it’s because:
Betty White lived, right up until the point where she died. This is no small feat. My mom has mostly given up and is literally counting down the hours until her death. Although she has some crazy longevity in her family and triple-digits are not out of the question, I doubt she’ll make it another year simply because her will is gone.
Betty White kept a positive attitude. She had sorrow in her life, but chose to look on the bright side and embrace living while she could. My mother now tries to be pleasant and to take her situation in stride. She regularly tells me that she thinks she’s in a nice apartment and that the caregivers are very nice (which is a big improvement from earlier when she referred to it as “a fancy prison”). Unfortunately, it’s hard
Betty White had a great sense of humor. She wasn’t afraid to look silly or undignified if it could make someone laugh. She knew that humor isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity for coping with this ludicrous world. My parents both had good senses of humor (that comes with raising nine kids, I guess), and it makes me smile when my mom is able to crack a joke, despite her situation.
Betty White wasn’t afraid of the future, she was realistic about her aging and made necessary accommodations but continued to be curious and optimistic about the world. My mother was in denial about the fact that she and my dad were aging and couldn’t continue to do the things they had always been able to do on their own. She thought her kids were out to get her for suggesting that they prepare for their old age. It’s not uncommon for older people to look with confusion and disdain on new technology and changing attitudes and think “the world is going to hell in a handbasket.” My mom is firmly in that camp and, as a consequence, is anxious to leave this world (the source of so much frustration and pain) behind.
Betty White was an advocate for those without a voice. Whether standing up to racism, embracing the LGBTQ community or tirelessly working for animal rights, she understood that the best way to endure the tragedies of this world is by working to eliminate injustice. My mother volunteered in many ways when her kids were young and has a strong sense of justice. I think her influence led to me wanting to adopt Blossom. Unfortunately, both she and my dad had an old-school view of retirement—it was all about playing golf and having fun. Later, her sense of purpose came from caring for my dad. However, that also caused her to withdraw from the world and left a huge void after his death.
Betty White made friends across all age groups and walks of life. Even after her husband and childhood friends were all gone, there were still plenty of people (and animals) to bring joy to her last few years. My parents gravitated toward a senior trailer park in Florida, where they hung out with their lifelong friends. They were away from the family for half of the year and never became that close with their many (30) grandchildren or great-grandchildren. My mom constantly grieves the losses of her childhood friends, parents, sister and my dad. She has only her children as companions and mourns the ones she doesn’t see regularly. It’s a sad existence, particularly at times like these when her senior community is experiencing a Coronavirus outbreak, and I’m not allowed to visit.
I have a habit of looking both backwards and ahead this time of year, and I want to end this blog on a more upbeat note. There’s a silver lining in this story, and that’s my personal relationship with my mom. For many years—about a decade—I was so stressed over the situation with my parents/mom and so exhausted from the fighting that I was secretly wishing it would end (and could only envision one possible ending). Yet I knew that my overwhelming feeling, upon learning of my mother’s death, would be one of relief. And that realization made me feel terrible.
Fortunately, as my mother’s dementia has progressed, she has reverted into the more nuanced person I knew growing up. She’s still not perfect, but she’s SO MUCH better (and nicer to me) than in the days of the Ill-Fated Meeting. (In fact, I may be the only child in this world who is actually grateful for her parent’s Alzheimer’s.) These days, she no longer accuses me of lying or gaslighting her when I recall something that she’s managed to block out or simply doesn’t remember. She’s incredibly thankful for my visits and tells me over and over how much she appreciates me and loves me. She now gives me hugs and kisses every time I see her. (I’ll confess that, as one of nine kids, I NEVER got as much parental affection or attention as I would have liked from my mother. It just wasn’t her style. My dad was the affectionate parent, which is part of why losing him was such a tremendous loss.)
One of the infamous “window visits” during the 2020 lockdown.
What’s tragic, though, is that she often laments her plight—saying, “I never thought I’d end up this way.” This is ironic because we kids not only saw it coming (as though it were an out-of-control locomotive barreling down the tracks), but we TOLD her (multiple times!) this is what would happen if she didn’t work with us to make arrangements for later in life.
So the silver lining that I mentioned is this: Now, when my mother finally does pass away (and I’d be surprised if she makes it to another new year), I know my feelings will be different than five years ago. I think I’ll still feel some relief, and reassurance that she’s with my dad and no longer sad and frightened, but I know this: I will miss her as well.
Looking back on the last, most difficult, decade with her, I now have a different perspective. I believe my mom was under an enormous strain caring for my dad, but as part of the “Greatest Generation” was committed to taking it all on herself. I also believe she was seeing evidence of her own forgetfulness and was terrified about losing control. And she projected so much anger on us kids that I just couldn’t see past it. We should have done more to help her, despite her refusal and her protests. I actually wish we had forcibly moved them earlier than we did, so that she and my dad could have had additional care and some higher quality time together during their last few years of marriage.
In cleaning out my parents’ house and belongings, it also became apparent to me that my mom had some significant undiagnosed mental health issues her whole life (ADD/OCD/depression and who knows what else). Again, mental health wasn’t something people of her generation talked about. You were just expected to cope the best you could. Given these challenges, I think she really tried to do her best in raising us, even if we feel like she sometimes fell short. Raising nine competent kids is an incredible feat.
So, my hope with this New Year’s blog is to get you to think a little about your own future. Some of you may be nearing retirement, some of you are just starting to raise kids, some of you may have horrible relationships with your aging parents and feel alone in that. (I assure you, you’re not.) What do you want your future to look like?
I’ve inherited some of my worst traits from my mom. Like her, I can be very critical. Like her, I have a sharp tongue” and often say things I regret. But over the last few days I’ve been thinking a lot about which “Betty” I want to be, and I encourage you to do the same.
I will continue to love and honor Betty G. and make her last days as pleasant as I can. But for my own future, I’m choosing to be like Betty White.
New Year’s and its related resolutions are a perennial theme for KitKat and me. (YES, we’ve been doing the blog long enough now to have “perennial themes”—and the fact that this blog started out as a resolution proves my point, I think…)
From vision boards to attitude adjustments, we’re both a bit obsessed with self-improvement. Or at least identifying our shortcomings on a regular basis (ha, ha). Seriously, with how much I think about these things, I should be perfect by now. But as you probably realize, thinking and doing are two different things.
While I can be decisive and even a little impulsive, and I sometimes abandon my efforts when they don’t yield immediate results, I’m also a big believer in adopting the approach of the tortoise over the hare—slow and steady wins the race—and over time, small incremental changes can have a large impact on my life. Case in point: the bachelor’s degree that took me 11 years to earn.
Most of the time, it’s just about the choices you make.
Back when KitKat and I worked together, I had a 2 p.m. pop habit. (I suppose I should explained to some of our unenlightened readers that “pop,” not “soda,” is the proper nickname for carbonated beverages like Pepsi, or in my case, Diet Coke.) Each workday at 2 p.m., I’d saunter down to the break room and stick my two quarters in our company-subsidized (boy, in those days we were livin’ large!) vending machine. You could almost set your clock by my daily pilgrimage.
When I left that job, I was unemployed for a while and quickly got over the need for my 2 p.m. caffeine jolt. However, on my first day with my current employer, I found myself in the breakroom at 2 p.m., dollar bill in hand (no subsidized vending machine there!) and as I was about to slide my money into the slot, I asked myself, “What am I doing?” Here I had successfully broken myself of a habit that was unhealthy and I nearly resumed it based on…what? A habit? A memory? I made a conscious decision NOT to buy the pop and have consumed very little since then—about 10 cans a year vs. the previous 60 or so.
This remembrance inspired my resolution for 2016. What could I accomplish by simply making different choices? I was reading Gretchen Rubin’s book “Better Than Before” about the process of creating and breaking habits—if you’re a self-improvement junkie it’s a must-read. Around the holidays I received her e-newsletter, which included an article about choosing a New Year’s theme instead of a resolution. This theme would consist of a word (or words) that would guide decisions for the upcoming year: “Health,” for example, or “Learn.”
As someone with new-found time on my hands after our recent downsizing, I wanted to get in touch with activities I wasn’t able to pursue when I was taking care of a house and three kids, so I originally was going to make “Discover” my theme for 2016. Then I realized that word wasn’t broad enough to encompass the other changes I wanted to incorporate into the year ahead, so I revised my theme to “Choose Different.” This has a few meanings for me: One is synonymous with “Discover”—because I still want to explore new interests. But “Choose Different” also reminds me to challenge my dysfunctional thinking patterns and alter behaviors that haven’t been serving me well.
Srsly? I chose a variation of an old Apple slogan for my New Year’s theme? How derivative!
We’re only three weeks in, but so far it’s yielding some positive results. One change I made was to force myself to be less of an introvert at work. It’s something I’ve told myself I needed to do a dozen times before, but a 360 review coupled with a tongue-lashing by a coworker friend convinced me I needed to make a change. Well, it hasn’t killed me and it IS improving some relationships at work, so I’ll keep plugging along until it feels natural. There are other examples as well, and I’m curious to see where this theme might take me in 2016. I guess that is one of the benefits of getting to 50. I can see the horizon ahead and know that even if I don’t get to my self-actualized destination overnight, I can become a better version of myself along the way…simply by making smarter choices most of the time. Are you making any changes in the new year? Please share in the comments…
I knew that I was a bit behind on my blogging, but was astonished to discover that my last post was in April… A whole summer had passed! A quarter of a year since I last logged in, yet I had thought I was only about a month behind on my writing. Actually, this summer has flown by in all aspects. Where did it all go? Next week my kids return to school. Usually, I am ready to push my kids out the door and back into a routine. Instead, this summer it feels like we were short changed by at least a month. The kids haven’t even yet started their ritual of bugging me, and each other, from too many days with no real structure.
I know I did plenty these past few months. And I actually have about four different blog topics started to document some of the activities that passed during this time. Though, I still have to prove it to Stormy who kept hearing me say, “I have something to write about this week.” Yet, nothing ever fully materialized past my initial jotted notes. I’d get distracted with a game of catch in the front yard, a neighbor beckoning me over for a glass of wine on the porch, or time commitments of baseball games replacing the winter hockey schedule. Then suddenly, with an uncompleted list of planned summer activities and several unfinished blog drafts sitting in my to-do pile, summer is wrapping up.
Is this the start of what my grandma warned me about? How time would speed up and pretty soon I’d be looking back wondering where all the years have gone?
Grandma still is the last one to leave a party!
This observation came from the same grandma who gave me and my friends lessons on how to best hold your drink and appetizer while still socializing at a party. So she has earned my trust in passing on truly valuable nuggets of wisdom.
I am hoping that it is just a strange happenstance versus getting older that caused the summer time warp. As you may remember from a past birthday blog of mine, I am not taking the whole aging process graciously. I am not quite ready for even more “attributes” of getting older, so time speeding up is exactly what I don’t need.
Whatever the reason, this summer cruised by way too fast. Reflecting back on these past months, I can only remember flashes of memories, rather than a good summer story.
It had its simple pleasures – cabin trips, moms-and-kids staycation, family visits, and lots of outdoor time with good friends.
Staycation travel: from GoCarts
To limos!
It has had its downers – breast cancer scares, parent’s health issues, and helping a friend through some intense life decisions and changes.
It has had its celebrations – my favorite being Stormy’s joint 50th birthday/moving party (which included drunk dancing in her backyard and a text the next day asking if I had any recollection of how she broke her toe after too many drinks!)
It had its lessons learned – wiener dogs do bite, waterslides are fun, and if the pool at the club closes unexpectedly just pull out the baby pool, hose and Prosecco in the backyard.
I guess, overall, the summer has just been filled with living in the present. I took a break from wondering what is next. I have a habit of always trying to peek at the chapter ahead versus engrossing myself in the current story. Maybe creating this new way of living through one of my chapters is what also messed with my time perspective. (Again, trying to deny the aging theory.)
If I was summing up this chapter of my life, I would just say it was a relaxing time, enjoying simple things, and growing up a bit (not growing old!). I did purposely try to make some self improvements such as watching how I acted and reacted, taking deep breaths as needed, and making sure I did the things I thought were best for those I love (whether they realized it or not).
I wasn’t always successful at this new calm, “take-it-as-it-comes” self. Just this past Sunday while back-to-school shopping at Target, I had a random moment where my mind was surprisingly confronted again with how fast time really does go. How quickly life changes. I had to remind myself to breathe–there was a reason I was there at that moment–and to just focus. No regrets. No worrying what was missed. Trust that I am making the most of my time, even in those periods of time that seem to disappear in a blink.
My personality won’t lend itself to taking this mellow approach to life long term. I am already plotting my plans and goals with fall approaching. I am considering taking up playing on a mom’s hockey league. I have some lofty career aspirations I want to hit. Also, I have a personal physical goal that I hope will send some parts of me back in time. As time keeps passing and new life chapters unfold, I want to find the right mix of excitement and challenges while regularly adding in some contentment and just enjoying the present. If my grandma’s warning is true about looking back and wondering where all the time has passed, I want to make sure I have filled the time with a vast collection of stories to look back on. I already have some wonderful ones to keep my old mind happy and as a good place to revisit.
My next chapter: The kids head back to school and I head to New York (a setting for several favorite memories already). Maybe saying goodbye to summer won’t so bad with an interest in finding out what is ahead.
You never know exactly what will be next or what tale will unfold. That should be the fun part, the unknown. It makes the passage of time easier. At least that is what my Grandma told me over a recent phone call. She also reminded me, “Growing old isn’t for sissies.”
When you last heard from me, two months ago, I thought I was through the worst of moving…However, downsizing is a gift that keeps on giving. We had a month of overlap with our properties which allowed us to make a few updates, but also dragged out the “fun.” We’re not home free quite yet, but we’ve been through enough where I can see a shimmering oasis of calm ahead, and I’m driving toward it with single-minded dedication. Here are some things I learned along the way:
Moving is when you learn who your friends are – The physical act of moving was an exhausting one after 25 years of accumulation. A well-meaning friend suggested I hire someone to pack everything up, but that was impractical for my situation. Each item needed to be evaluated—something that movers couldn’t do: Should it go to the new place? Do the kids need it? Could any of my family use it? Should we donate it to charity? Is it garbage? Sometimes the answer came quickly: Of course my bunny collection is going with me. No, we don’t need the cassette tapes. But others were tricky: I love my curio cabinet and TV stand, but there’s no place to put them in the new unit. And—in a situation I’m guessing was not unique to us—we eventually ran out of time and began throwing things willy-nilly in boxes. (This explains why, at our new condo, I spotted a box whose labeled contents included “Wii box.” Not the Wii IN the box, mind you, but rather a box for a video game system we bought in 2008, that my youngest has since taken to college. Really? Moving a box for an obsolete and relocated gaming system? Really?) As I was lamenting all the work involved in this process, I was genuinely touched when several friends offered sincerely to help move, pack and unpack. There’s a joke about finding out who your real friends are when you need to move—but it’s a joke based in truth.
We all have too much stuff and the 80/20 rule generally applies – Attempting to unpack was a lesson in humility. Who needs all this stuff? I thought of an article I read where a photographer took photos of people with all of their possessions laid out beside them. I was embarrassed by the sheer volume of riches I take for granted. We were buried in boxes for a solid week and had to move some into a storage unit just so workmen could get at our floor to replace it. Yet, somehow we managed to find the really important stuff—and survive without the Belgian waffle maker or ice cream maker. I’ve tried to live by Thoreau’s mantra, “He who owns little is little owned,” but clearly I’ve failed. My stuff is dictating how I live right now. I’m totally owned.
Organization is expensive—but worth it – People have varying tolerances for clutter, but I’ve found the older I get, the less I can tolerate living in a mess. My brain jumps from thought to thought and I become mentally exhausted trying to find things. One day, I returned home to find that my husband had been unpacking and attempted to organize the kitchen. Here’s his idea of a good location for a pantry:
If you can guess what’s up there… well then maybe YOU can make me dinner!
Yes, it’s the cupboard above the refrigerator, where one usually stashes the roaster, the crockpot and other rarely used items. I had to text a photo of this to several girlfriends for sympathy and laughs before pulling out all the foodstuffs and relocating them to a more accessible location. (By the way, re-doing unpacking is even more annoying that regular unpacking.)
After four trips to The Container Store, I’m starting to bring order to my chaos, but at a price. That stuff ain’t cheap. But at least it matches, which brings me to another lesson:
Warning: Companies that make plastic totes are evil – That’s right, I’m talking to YOU Rubbermaid, Hefty, Sterlite… At one time, I had a vision of a perfect storage area with nicely matching totes, either clear or nicely labeled, but I’ve come to understand this Nirvana will never be realized unless I’m willing to buy all 20 totes at once. Why? Because companies that make totes change their design every two weeks. So if you buy a few at a time (like most normal people), the next time you go to buy them, they will be different—color, size, lids, something. (And good luck if you need to only replace a lid—it’s just not happenin’… Accept it and get on with your life.)
Summer is fleeting, take the time to enjoy it – The worst thing about moving in the summer is missing out on what is an already too-short season in Minnesota. Therefore, my husband and I have been trying to work in little bits of summer fun wherever we can: an impromptu boat outing, dinner on a rooftop patio, even listening to a local band performance while unpacking (our new home is next to a park, so we can hear music from the amphitheater when our windows are open). It was particularly inspiring when one of the bands started playing the theme from “Rocky.” Any daunting task seems more doable when accompanied by “Gonna Fly Now” performed by a live orchestra outside your window! … It’s a trade-off between wanting to make my current living situation more tolerable now and not wanting to wake up in my beautiful new home in September, wondering where my summer went. Somehow, I’ll find that balance, but it’s easier said than done.
Dear Readers, It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, but I don’t want you to think I’ve taken this absence lightly. We know our legions of followers depend on our dysfunctional tales to help them feel good about themselves, and KitKat and I are loath to disappoint. I want to take this moment to thank you for indulging me in my prolonged absence and assure you that the dry spell is nearly over. I hope that when you read what I’ve been up to, you can forgive me my negligence… And now, where has Stormy been the last three months?
Moving prep can kill you.
Well, last year I mentioned that my husband and I were going to downsize. Part of this is just due to entering a new phase of our lives—our kids are grown and starting their own lives. At the same time, it’s also a concession to my husband’s Parkinson’s Disease. Twelve years into this disease, certain things have become difficult—and although he’s still able to do quite a bit when his meds are working, we’d both rather he didn’t have to spend his “quality time” doing routine household chores and yard work. After the holidays, we consulted with a realtor friend of my brother’s and decided we’d try to list our house in the spring. (In Minnesota, there’s a definite season to house-hunting and it peaks in April/May.)
Originally, I had a very pragmatic outlook to moving and told myself (and my husband) that we’d first focus on selling our house and then take our time finding the perfect new home. After all, we have a vacation condo (“urban cabin”) about 40 minutes away that we could live in temporarily if needed. Well, this strategy lasted about one week. I started thinking about the limitations involved in moving to our vacation condo—impossible for my husband to drive to his personal trainer appts., harder to see my elderly parents, farther away from other friends and relatives, longer drive to work—and decided I just wanted to get the process over with. (As I like to say, I’m fine with change—it’s changing, I can’t stand. Yet that’s the action verb that gets one to a new stage in life. It’s unavoidable—like death and taxes.)
I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done.
– Robert Downey, Jr.
It’s also a fact that I tend to become a little obsessed over things like this—as my husband could attest—and so I started poring over online listings looking for our new home. This process was both exciting and frustrating. After so many years in the same house, it was exhilarating to think, “I can have a big walk-in closet!” “I can have a big master bathroom!” But it was also discouraging to realize that my husband’s illness meant we couldn’t pursue some properties—like the cool old brownstone in St. Paul with tons of character that required the owners to walk a long flight of stairs to reach the house from the detached garage out back (a perilous journey in the winter for someone whose meds aren’t working).
In mid-March we went to an open house for a property that showed promise. It was in one of our favorite areas of town and, although it wasn’t perfect, it “ticked enough of the boxes” to warrant serious consideration. Unfortunately, there were two major problems for us. 1) They didn’t allow dogs and 2) We were about to leave for a week long trip for Mexico. I decided I would just relax, enjoy our vacation fully and reassess the condo situation once we returned (if the unit had not been sold by that time).
Ziplines in the jungle were a fun distraction from house-hunting.
However, during our vacation I found myself keeping one eye on the listing, and during the week a couple of additional properties popped up that were worth looking into as well. I was starting to feel more confident that we would ultimately find something that would work for us.
The morning after our vacation, I emailed our realtor three properties that we wanted to see. We wanted to go back to “the one that ticked the boxes” for a closer look, and there were two new places we wanted to check out. He responded that the two new ones were already off the market, but he’d scheduled a return visit to the condo we had seen before vacation. It seemed like a sign.
Blossom and Pixie in younger days
When we went back the second time, we took a closer look at the place and started talking about how we would redecorate, where we would put furniture and what we would do to make the condo “ours”…We were both able to envision ourselves living there fairly easily, but we still had the issue of our dog. I asked my youngest, college-age Blossom, whether she’d consider taking our elderly Westie. (In Pixie’s eyes, Blossom has always been her one true master.) And she graciously agreed to help us out her by taking on custody of her childhood companion. After that was settled, we made an offer on the condo that was under the asking price and were thrilled when the buyers accepted it quickly. One half of our journey was complete!
However, there was still the small detail of selling our house. So we dove headfirst into the arduous process of getting our house ready to list. This was no minor task. After 25 years, there were a myriad of small repairs needed: painting, pintucking our bricks, replacing fixtures and outlets, staining woodwork. Fixing the broken windows, quite literally. And cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. (Our realtor recommended everything be “surgically clean,” which is a notch or two higher than my personal bar: “the illusion of clean.”)
Our realtor always lists on Fridays and holds an open house the first weekend—part of a strategy to generate interest quickly—so we set a personal deadline for listing our house. A week before our self-imposed deadline, we knew we wouldn’t make it. My ADD was kicking in, so if I had to go into a new room to find a paintbrush or tape, I’d be distracted by 10 other things that needed doing. This meant there were half-packed boxes and half-finished projects EVERYWHERE and the clutter was stressing me out, making it even harder to focus. There was still way too much to do. Moreover, we were both incredibly tired, and I hadn’t been feeling well either—but since we now had a closing date set for our new place, we were determined to push through and finish.
The Lean Mean Cleaning Machine (Will work for food!)
I sent a “HELP!” text to my two sisters who live closest and they both volunteered their services immediately. I’ve mentioned before that I have a challenging relationship with my mom—but my sisters make up for it in love and support. I know that I can call on them for anything and they’ll be there. Because most of them were already teenagers when I was born, they did a lot of the heavy lifting involved in raising me when I was little and served as great sounding boards when I was a teen/young adult myself. After buying my sisters a nice breakfast, I proceeded to work them like slaves the rest of the day. But by the end of the weekend, we finally turned a corner and I could see that we would in fact make our deadline. We were ecstatic to actually see the finish line ahead.
First thing Friday morning, I searched the Internet for our listing and there it was: For Sale. The professionally taken photos of the surgically clean rooms—completely devoid of any family photos or usual signs of life (like ironing boards and dirty laundry)—looked nothing to me like the house I had lived in all of these years. But it looked good, nonetheless. So much so that text messages for showing requests arrived all day and over the course of the first two days, there were about eight private showings in addition to the open house. By Sunday morning we had FIVE offers—the best one a full $20k over our asking price. Even better, when we received the paperwork for the offer, we discovered that the buyer was the son of one of my husband’s college buddies. It was the icing on the cake to know that our house was going to a young couple, just starting out, that seem to love it as much as we do.
This impending move has been weighing heavily on my mind for the last five years or longer. To have everything turn out better than I expected was a much-needed reminder that in this dog-eat-dog world, sometimes life throws you a bone and it’s best to just wag your tail and savor the sweet taste of success. 😉
(Some headlines just write themselves.) In an earlier post, I mentioned being a late-comer to the fitness scene. I always had trouble with the idea of paying money to sweat and I was blessed with a good metabolism, not much of a sweet tooth and a little ADD. So I managed to stay reasonably fit without trying too hard. Eventually, however, Father Time and Mother Gravity caught up with me. And watching my parents deal with joint replacements and various aches and pains made me realize that it was time to get serious about protecting my own health. So, I joined LA Fitness and signed up for a personal trainer. Surprisingly, I actually thought my weight-lifting workouts were somewhat fun. But a few months into my new routine, my trainer announced she was leaving LA Fitness due to some disagreements with management. I changed to another trainer—a cute boy who was the same age as my college-age daughter—but although he was an okay replacement in terms of making me work, I didn’t enjoy my sessions as much. After a short-time, he moved on to another gym as well, and I was once again stuck without a trainer.
Join at your own risk.
Based on the staff turnover and my lack of enthusiasm for working out on my own, I decided LA Fitness wasn’t a good fit for me. Trying to end my membership was a hellacious experience—it was 2014 and they required that we send a snail-mail letter to their headquarters and allow a month to process the cancellation—seriously?!? Then, despite sending the cancellation notice via registered mail (I know a scam when I see one), they claimed not to have received it and kept debiting our bank account for months after we cancelled. After multiple phone calls yielded no results, we actually had to cancel our debit card altogether before the auto-deductions ceased.
I then began a season of sluggishness that didn’t sit well with me. I had grown accustomed to working out, was feeling stronger than I had in a long time…and actually sort-of enjoyed it. I didn’t want to go back to my sedentary former self. I spent a few months trying to find a perfect substitute, but I was hesitant to commit to another membership (I was very gun-shy after my LA Fitness nightmare). So, I decided to try a couple of different options using a “punch card” and found the “pay-as-you-go” approach much more practical. Best of all, I didn’t have to sign any gym contracts or commit to just one routine. After a few months of this, I decided that when it comes to working out, promiscuity is a good thing. And it’s an approach that works for my lifestyle. Here’s what my “slutty” fitness routine looks like: Yoga at three different places – I go to a studio near my home, a studio where we have our weekend place, and thanks to a recommendation from KitKat, yoga comes to me once a week at my workplace. Small group circuit training – Because I wanted to continue to build muscle, but find gyms boring, I joined a small gym that does circuit training in small groups. This is a good fit because the trainer holds me accountable and the other participants keep me motivated (when I get tired, I just think, “if they can do it, so can I”). Pole and silks classes – This I do for the great workout and the sheer joy of it. I attended my first class (an introductory freebie) as a lark and had so much fun I was hooked. It’s a small, friendly, women-only studio that attracts members of all shapes, sizes and ages. I’ve taken my daughters, too, and laughed along with them while videotaping their spins and moves. This takes core strength to a whole new level.
One of my favorite running spots, the nature center near my home (with nobody to laugh at my pace except the ducks and the deer).
I supplement these “paid” workouts with a number of other activities done on my own—an exercise bike and free weights in the winter and, when the weather is nice, walking, running (although not very far), biking, paddleboarding and roller-blading. The variety keeps me going and if I’m not in the mood to do one activity, I can always substitute another.
One palm, grilled medium well.
I knew I had turned a corner on the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. It was unseasonably warm for January in Minnesota and I was taking advantage of the mild weather to grill some carnitas. In a very stupid move, I accidentally grabbed an electric charcoal starter that was molten hot. Although I immediately plunged my singed hand into the snow at my feet, I nonetheless suffered second degree burns on my palm and fingers. I had been planning to go to my small group training that evening, but knew I couldn’t work on the machines if I couldn’t use my right hand. Then it dawned on me that I couldn’t do ANY of my normal workouts (except my exercise bike) with my blistered hand. And rather than rejoice in having a legitimate excuse not to exercise, I was actually disappointed. However, I was determined to do my best to keep to my routine. And although I missed my session that evening, I maneuvered my way through my downward dogs at work yoga the next day. I also attended my small group circuit training class on Wednesday. On Sunday, I took advantage of the nice weather by going ice skating at a nearby park with my sister (skating is something I LOVED to do as a kid, but don’t do very often as an adult). When I realized I had managed to get three workouts in despite a pretty serious injury, it dawned on me that…gasp!…exercise had actually become a priority for me. That would have been unthinkable three years ago. I’ve discovered that when it comes to exercise, the best routine for me isn’t a routine at all and “fitness infidelity” is the way to go. Hey, you can still teach an old Stormy new tricks.
When I left that job, I was unemployed for a while and quickly got over the need for my 2 p.m. caffeine jolt. However, on my first day with my current employer, I found myself in the breakroom at 2 p.m., dollar bill in hand (no subsidized vending machine there!) and as I was about to slide my money into the slot, I asked myself, “What am I doing?” Here I had successfully broken myself of a habit that was unhealthy and I nearly resumed it based on…what? A habit? A memory? I made a conscious decision NOT to buy the pop and have consumed very little since then—about 10 cans a year vs. the previous 60 or so.
This remembrance inspired my resolution for 2016. What could I accomplish by simply making different choices? I was reading 
Easier Said Than Done 