Right now

Right now... (an occasional meme, alternating from time to time with "The Current"):

Reading:  Finishing up D.E. Stevenson's  "Five Windows" for my online Stevenson book club. Next up, I think: Margaret Atwood's "Alias Grace" (before I watch the new television miniseries (adapted by Sarah Polley)(although it's a toss-up whether I'll watch it on PVR from the episodes broadcast on CBC, or on Netflix in November...!).  

Recent purchases:  "The Best of Us" by Joyce Maynard, "Thanks Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years" by David Litt, and "What Happened" by Hillary Rodham Clinton.  

Watching:  We were recently enthralled by Ken Burns's 18-hour documentary "The Vietnam War" on PBS (we even watched the last two episodes from our hotel room on our trip).  I'm Canadian, but my mother is American, and I grew up with the Vietnam War in the newspapers every day and on the TV news every night;  I was 12 when it ended. The little county in rural Minnesota where my mother grew up lost four young men over there, all between the ages of 21 & 23. Their names are inscribed on the memorial wall in Washington, and if/when I ever get there, I am going to look for them. One of my mother's cousins' daughters wore a MIA (missing in action) bracelet for one of them. He was a helicopter pilot, shot down in 1973. His body was finally recovered and returned to his family in 1995, more than 22 (!) years later.  

I PVRd the first episode of season 2 of Designated Survivor while we were away,  and watched it last night. Not as compelling as some of last year's episodes, but I do like Kiefer Sutherland in the role (channeling his grandfather, perhaps??), and it's mildly entertaining.    

I am revelling in the new season of Poldark to watch on PBS. :)

And I am looking forward to the return of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates on PBS tonight. :)

Eating:  Got out the crockpot/slow cooker this weekend, for the first time in months, and made a great roast beef with potatos & carrots. Lots of leftovers for lunches this week. Yum!! 

Drinking: Lots of tea. The cooler weather calls for it. :) 

Listening:   Current earworms:  Tom Petty songs, especially this one. Rest in peace, Tom. :(  He was one of my favourites (& definitely one of dh's).  Too damned many of the musicians who provided the soundtrack of my youth have been dropping like flies lately. Seriously depressing. :(  

Wearing:  Still wearing sandals & capris on nicer days -- but they are becoming fewer and further apart. :(  I had to put on long jeans, socks & shoes for the first time on our recent road trip. SIL did too -- and got a blister and had to change back into sandals.   

Buying (besides books, lol):  I'm actually trying not to accumulate a lot of stuff that we don't have room for -- although somehow, I still can't resist buying cheap new T-shirts, especially with the change of seasons and all the new fall stuff in the stores. I recently bought a couple of new throw pillows for the couch that I liked better than the previous ones (I LOATHED the ones that actually came with the couch -- colours did not match my decor at all), and a new fall-themed tablecloth, although I haven't used it yet. 

It's still a bit early, but I've been doing some preliminary browsing for a dress for Younger Nephew's wedding in the spring!  

Wondering:  If/when Aunt Flo will make her next appearance. It's day 59 & my last cycle was 69 days, so things are (finally!!) starting to slow down. About time, no??  

Recovering: From our recent road trip. Did a LOT of walking, and I've only just started to lose my stiffness and feel somewhat rested again. 

Wishing: That I was attending the NotMom conference in Cleveland this weekend. (One of these years...!)  Why does everything always have to happen all at once??  We were invited to a family wedding in Minneapolis;  not going to that either -- but I didn't feel like I could brush off my family and then jet off to Cleveland, right? (Some people probably could & would do it;  I'm not that brave. ;)  )  Plus we just got back from a road trip with BIL & SIL, not quite as far away as Cleveland, but still time & energy & money spent.  Plus (note to the organizers) it is the Thanksgiving long weekend here in Canada... and we've actually been invited to join BIL & family for dinner on Sunday. (And not at the last minute as an afterthought, either, which is even nicer...!).

Remembering:  The fun and excitement of Older Nephew's wedding, which was one year ago this past weekend. 

Anticipating: Younger Nephew's wedding, coming up this spring! :)  

Reeling:  After finding an obituary online this morning for our hairdresser of the past 15 years. :(  Even after we moved last year, we kept going to see her -- not only are good stylists hard to find and we had a long history with her, she was married to one of dh's childhood buddies -- he was an usher at their wedding (something they realized only after he was sitting in her chair for the first time -- one of those "small world" coincidences!).  She was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year (hasn't worked since then, referred us to one of the other stylists there), and died last month, just two weeks after we last visited the salon. Leaves her husband & two sons, about the same ages as our nephews.  I hate to admit this, but I have been Googling her name the last several times before I called the salon, just in case... we all knew it was coming, but it's still just so damned sad. :(   She was always so full of fun & laughter, and she was a damned good hairdresser to boot. The coworker she referred us to is very nice & does a good job. But I miss her. :(   

Feeling:  A little tired from our trip, a little melancholy over all the recent bad news (personal & public), a little sad that summer is (for the most part) done, but looking forward to the rest of October, which is one of my favourite months. 

Realizing: That it's not THAT long until Christmas (eeekkk!!) &time to start thinking about booking flights to Mom & Dad's. 

#MicroblogMondays: The odds (& ends) of early October

• I realize I've been silent for the past two weeks or so -- haven't even gotten in much reading or commenting -- but it's been very busy.  
• Dh, BIL & SIL & I took a little road trip last week (three days/two nights = one full day). Had a great time, and have been trying to catch up on sleep & laundry since we got back. (Specific trip post with some photos to come, eventually...)  
• The weather there went from very hot & humid to pretty darned chilly overnight. I packed capris & sandals, long jeans, a denim jacket, shoes & socks. They all came in handy. 
• (Perhaps partly because of the dramatic shift in the weather?) Upon our return, poor dh came down with a bad cold. I've been playing nurse (& trying not to catch it myself...!).  
• I did all the research for the trip and chose the hotel -- which, thankfully, everyone thought was great, as well as the place an online friend had recommended for dinner. Huge relief for me!
• We also had a visitation & funeral to attend immediately upon our return. I think it was Mali who noted in a recent comment that we seem to have been attending more than a few funerals lately. I recently counted up the funeral cards I've collected over the past six months or so:  6.  They include dh's cousin's FIL, another cousin's MIL, another cousin's aunt (whom dh knew well as a child), a good friend of dh's father, Oldest Nephew's MIL's boyfriend's father (got that??), and (most recently) FIL's FIL (stepMIL's father, who was 96 -- just 8 years older than FIL, who is 88!). (My parents also attended a celebration of life last week for a good friend of almost 50 years, who died suddenly at age 81.)  We only attended the funeral mass for FIL's FIL;  the others were just funeral home visitations, and I didn't really know most of them, or know them very well... but still. I guess it's the age we & our peers -- or, more specifically, their parents -- are at now. :(  
• The weather is still pretty nice, and the leaves have only just barely begun changing colour, but it's definitely fall now! 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

#MicroblogMondays: Childless/free living odds & ends

• Last week was the first World Childless Week, which was created to raise awareness and support for/about people who are childless not by choice. I didn't write anything about it here before, partly because I didn't learn about it the week was underway, and partly because I am still wading my way through the abundance of great related reading I found online. 
• Through my reading and by following links, I discovered a few new childless/free blogs & sites, which I've added to the blogroll & resources links on the right-hand side of this page. Check them out! 
• While in general, the ALI blogosphere seems a lot quieter than it used to be, I have noticed an absolute explosion of blogs & other writing (news articles, etc.) related to childless/free living over the past few months/year or so. When I started blogging almost 10 (!!) years ago, I could count the number of childless-not-by-choice bloggers (who blogged with any regularity) on the fingers of one hand, and only one of them (Pamela) still blogs with any regularity -- so this is incredibly heartening to witness.  In fact, all the blogs featured in the Stirrup Queen's most recent Friday roundup came from this corner of the ALI community (as Mali noted in the comments there). 
• One good piece that I found this past weekend, from the Guardian: "What's it to you if some people don't have kids?"  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

Autumn anxiety?

(This is another half-finished post from two years ago that I pulled from my drafts folder.)

Someone in an online loss group I frequent recently commented that she's been having a difficult time with panic attacks lately, and she wasn't sure why. Another member suggested it might be the changing of the seasons -- and several people confessed they too often felt their moods changing, as Labour Day signalled the unofficial end of summer. (The official end, of course, is coming soon enough...!)

And then I saw this article in the Huffington Post online. Apparently "autumn anxiety" is a thing. "Autumn is full of new things: new schedules, new jobs, new schools, new assignments," the article points out. (It also has suggestions for coping strategies.)

I don't think I have "autumn anxiety" (at least, not at this point... not yet...!). But, for the sake of this post ;)  let's say I did/do.  What's my excuse??  None of these "new" things apply to me at this point of my life. I no longer work or go to school, and I don't have kids who do either. We've been in our new condo in our new community for more than year now, and while we're still getting used to some things, we've developed a basic familiarity with the area and have developed some new routines.

And there's always a lot that I look forward to in the fall. I'm not into pumpkin spice lattes ;)  but I welcome the end of stifling heat & humidity (although that wasn't as much of a factor this year), the advent of the beautiful fall colours, and fewer people crowding the malls, etc., as kids go back to school and life returns to a more normal routine. I'm sad to give up my capris & sandals -- but there are certain long-sleeved T-shirts and sweaters that I'm always glad to dig out of the armoire again too. ;)

Many of us have heard of "seasonal anxiety disorder," or SAD. I always tended to associate it with the winter months -- say, November through February/March -- but it makes sense that it might begin or have its roots in the autumn.  Think about it:  the days are getting shorter/darker again. The weather is starting to get colder, which makes it harder to get outdoors. (When the capris & sandals go back into the closet and the long pants and sweaters come out, you know it won't be long before the heavy winter coat, boots, hats & mittens do too...!) A lot of people have seasonal allergies that kick in during the fall months and make them miserable. And even if we're not going back to school ourselves (or sending kids off to school), September is generally when groups, recreational classes and other activities that went dormant during the summer start up again. It's easy to get caught up in the atmosphere of busy-ness, if we aren't careful.

From an ALI perspective, autumn can certainly be a tough time of year.  Several childless-not-by-choice friends have confessed they find the "back to school" hoopla on social media (which tends to drag on for more than a month, starting in the States in early/mid-August and going on through early/mid-September) just as difficult to get through -- or even more so -- than Halloween or Christmas. Another reminder of what we don't have, the life we wanted but didn't get, what might have been, time passing by, etc.

For me personally, autumn does carry some sad reminders, beyond the back-to-school stuff. I spent most of August, all of September & the first few weeks of October 1998 at home, off work, recuperating from the physical, mental and emotional effects of stillbirth.  What should have been the last few months of my pregnancy (my due date was mid-November), a time of excitement and sweet anticipation, became the first few months of my new life -- a life I never wanted and certainly never expected to have. Could my annual "I hate November" blog rants be viewed as the last gasps of "autumn anxiety??

Right now, I'm feeling fine. :)  But if my posts start taking on a more melancholy tone over the next while (the closer we get to November...??!), autumn anxiety just might be a factor. ;)

Do you experience "autumn anxiety"? 

#MicroblogMondays: Friend??

Someone unfriended me on Facebook last week. I know, because I noticed my friend count had dropped by one.  Really, I'm not obsessed with the number of my FB friends (or accumulating more, more, more!!) -- but the number doesn't change much, so when it does, it's noticeable. I have no idea which friend it was or why they dropped me, and it's been driving me nuts. (Was it you??  lol) (I keep meaning to do a printout of my friends to refer to at times like these, but it never gets done.)

I've been unfriended a couple of times in the past (that I've noticed), and I always wonder what I did that prompted that person to drop me. (I've never been told I was being unfriended -- and I always assume that it's my "fault," of course...!)  I think I mentioned a while back that I realized I was unfriended earlier this year by a Trump supporter, directly after the U.S. presidential inauguration/Women's March. :(  The link there was pretty clear.  There are some people on my friends list that I wouldn't miss if they unfriended me -- but for many reasons, this one hurt. :(    

Sometimes I notice the number of my FB friends magically increases again. In at least one case, I learned that one of my friends hadn't really unfriended me;  she'd just been taking a social media break and suspended and then activated her account, which was a bit of a relief. (One of dh's cousins does this every year -- she gives up Facebook for Lent!) Sometimes a friend's disappearance has nothing to do with you and everything to do with what's going in their life at the moment. Or they're just tired of dealing with social media. A good lesson to learn...!   

I have never unfriended anyone myself. I HAVE "unfollowed" a few people whose posts I found offensive, or overwhelming (because of their sheer volume...!).

Have you ever "unfriended" anyone on Facebook, or been unfriended yourself? Does being unfriended bother you? 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.

"Some people get what they want and some don't"

I am reading another book by D.E. Stevenson for my Stevenson group on Yahoo.  It's called "Five Windows," and if I read it when I was a teenager (when I initially discovered Stevenson) I don't remember it. I am only a few chapters in, and I will (of course ;)   ) provide a full review when I'm done, but I already read something that struck a chord with me that I wanted to share here.

The novel's protagonist/narrator is a young Scottish boy named David, a keen observer of the people around him. David's friend, Freda Lorimer, wishes she was a boy;  her father (described as a "difficult" man) wanted a son, but got three daughters, including twins (!). David's mother fusses over the twins when they come to visit, prompting David to ask if she wishes he’d been a girl.

"Oh Davie, you mustn't be jealous! There's more misery caused by jealousy than anything else in the world. Jealousy is wicked and foolish too. It's like a disease," said Mother earnestly. "It's like an awful creeping disease. It's like ivy strangling a tree."  

Having said this, David's mother admits she would have liked a girl – a sister for him. Like David, she was an only child, and feels she missed something valuable in life -- but as she points out:

“...we can't choose.  Some people get what they want and some don’t… They say it’s bad for you to have everything you want but some people can’t bear to be thwarted. Nethercleugh (the Lorimer farm) would be a happier house if there were a laddie in it.” 

"Some people get what they want and some don't."  This line reminded me of Ariel Levy's book, "The Rules Do Not Apply" and how she asks New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd about having children. Dowd tells her, "Everybody doesn't get everything."

Life can disappoint us in ways big & small -- this is certainly something we learn when it comes to adoption, loss, infertility and coming to terms with childlessness. There will always be "what ifs?" and speculation about the life we might have had, if only... I think that learning to make the most of the hand we're dealt -- acknowledging our disappointment, but then making our peace with the life we wanted and learning gratitude for the life we have -- is the key to a (reasonably?) happy life (whether you have to deal with infertility & loss, or not). It can be a lifelong struggle, of course, and some of us do better (or worse) at it than others -- but the point is to keep trying. We can let our grief and disappointment eat away at us and sour us on life, as with Freda's father -- or we can try to enjoy the life that's in front of us. There are some choices we don't get to make, as David's mother observes -- but that's a choice that we do have.

In the immortal words of Sheryl Crow (lol), "It's not having what you want/It's wanting what you've got."  :)

I think that, if I've learned one key life lesson from these past 19 years, this would be it.

What do you think?

Expand, contract

(I started this post two years ago (!), after I lost my job in July 2014 but before we sold our house & moved into a condo in April 2016. I recently found it in my drafts folder, updated/reworded and expanded on the theme before hitting "publish" now. ) 

Noemi had a interesting post a while back about "Restriction vs intention" -- what she can't do versus what she is trying to do.

This struck a chord with me and made me think about my own life. In some ways, I feel like my life has been shrinking, becoming more restricted, over the few years:

• I lost my job = my income has shrunk (and so, hence, has my spending).  
• My social circle (never very big to begin with) has shrunk. I can go for days without carrying on a meaningful, non-transactional conversation with another adult besides dh (most store clerks don't count). I have lost touch with almost all the people I used to interact with during the work day. I've stayed in touch with a few of my former coworkers through social media, but rarely see or socialize with any of them. We used to live closer to one retired coworker and she & I would get together now & then, but since the move she's a lot further away. Another friend I occasionally socialize with will be moving to another province soon. BIL & SIL and several of dh's cousins live close by, but most of them still work during the day, and are otherwise busy with kids & their activities, aging parents to look in on, etc. 
• I downsized my possessions, even my precious book collection!! (maybe not enough, but still by a significant amount, lol), sold our house (which, at about 1200 square feet, wasn't huge to begin with) and moved into an 874-square-foot condo.  
• I lost access to the great public transit we enjoyed (well, better than what we have here at the moment...!) -- & with it, my sense of mobility and freedom (particularly since I do not drive). There's road construction going on around our condo building at the moment that makes it difficult just to get out of our building's driveway, nevermind actually drive anywhere...!  
• I'm losing people that I knew (and who knew me) during my growing-up years -- relatives, friends of my parents (including one just last week). I'm also obliged to attend funerals/visitations for people I don't necessarily know, or know well (but it's still a funeral, right? ...!) -- friends of dh's family, cousins' inlaws, etc. (I was reorganizing the paper in the slots on my desk recently and was startled by how many funeral cards I've accumulated in the past several months...!)  
• Even the musicians who scored the soundtrack of my youth have been dropping like flies lately, it seems:  Glenn Frey of the Eagles, David Bowie, Prince, Kenny Shields of Streetheart, Skip Prokop of Lighthouse, to name just a few.  

I know that this happens to most of us as we age -- we retire, move into smaller homes or even seniors' residences, eventually give up our drivers' licenses and our annual trips to Florida (out-of-country travel insurance skyrockets once you're past 75), friends start to pass away... but for most people, that doesn't start happening until their 60s or 70s, at the earliest.  At this point in my life (mid-50s), most of my peers still have lives that are busy and full.  They have jobs, houses (some have cottages too, or houses or condos in Florida), children, grandchildren (or the prospect thereof), and friends & social activities that they've become involved with (some through their children). I've heard about some retirees who are actually buying LARGER homes, to accommodate their visiting children & grandchildren (or those adult children who are still living at home because of the tight job market & lack of affordable housing options).

I’ve been trying to “reframe” things in my mind -- focus less on what I might be losing vs what I'm gaining.  Example: I lost my job -- and with it, some of my income, my old daily routines & social interactions -- but also a LOT of stress -- and I've gained more time and freedom to do other things. I lost square footage, possessions and familiar surroundings when we downsized into our condo -- but I gained the opportunity for more travel & other experiences, closer proximity to our extended family, including our nephews (and maybe, in the future, some great-nephews & nieces??).  We lost many of the headaches that go hand in hand with home ownership -- lawns to mow, weeds to pull, sidewalks to shovel after snowstorms... And I gained a MUCH happier husband (which is definitely worth a lot!).  :)

But it's hard. It's hard to let go of the old familiar life & stuff.

Don't get me wrong. My "new" life is a good one, overall. Like my old life, it has its advantages, and its painful moments. But sometimes it's hard to stay focused on the positive, and not dwell on what you've lost or what you miss.

Do you feel like your life is expanding? Contracting? In neutral gear??