fragile but strong

 

last week, the announcement was made at work that i am retiring after 34 years.

the place that i grew up, the co-workers who became friends and family, the hard lessons learned, the many gifts received...

i was walking away, but leaving behind a lot of my life, my identity, my world.

but when it's not easy to go but even harder to stay, you know it's time.

as word got out, and it became more real,

i could feel the weight lifting off my shoulders.

my smile felt more sincere, my voice was sounding happier. i could hear it :)

 

then, on monday, joey's job unexpectedly came to an end.

he had been there 15 years and this was a way of life, an identity, for him too.

omg OMFG.

every plan that we had painstakingly put in place fell apart.

it was funny at first - how weird that the timing happened this way, chuckle chuckle

then we started envisioning how april -may, june, july etc- would go,

and we both got really scared. and really sad.

this truly was not our plan.

omg

OMFG

 

 

how could we do this? 

this meant we'd have to get health insurance?

we'd be selling the condo and moving to the cape?

what would we do together all day?

should i pull back the retirement, stay where there's security, an income, health insurance, a continuity of our current lifestyle, a daily routine...?

i think we both aged in the 24 hours that followed the announcement that his place of business was closing. 

he has a month from today until d-day.

i have until march 30. it is crazy.

 

 

we talked and we hugged. and slept. and thought.

and we cried a lot.  

and ultimately we made a new decision.

 

we are going to embrace this new world we've found ourselves in as a gift.

for the first time in the 33 yrs that we've lived together,

we will be unbound to 9-5 commitments.

we will need to find new routines. that's a good thing.

we may have less money to spend, but that too can be a good thing.

we never thought we'd be lucky enough to get to retire together.

many people don't get that option in life.

the plan we put together so meticulously didnt hold up long enough for me to even get to the first day of retirement. 

so, there's no plan this go-round.

this time, we just hold hands, and step off the edge, together.

 

fragile

but strong.

 

 

 

 

 

yellow boy saga...

we, like the rest of the northeast, spent a chunk of last weekend cleaning up after hurricane sandy.  as we did that, we kept an eye out for the little yellow cat that we spotted more than a few times since Sandy blew through.

 

we fed him night and day, worried night and day, as well.

there was another bad storm heading our way this past wednesday and both joey and i wanted this little boy safe and sound for the storm.

so tuesday morning,

i took the serious step of setting the trap. 

i always hate doing this because.

first, it really scares the animal and this guy was already very skittish. 

and second, if it works, what am i going to do with this guy if he gets into the trap?

 

but the concern about his well-being,

and our ability to weather the worry, won out.

and the trap was set.

 

less than 15 minutes later, he was caught! 

 

i brought the squirming hissing ball of yellow fur upstairs to the 'rescue safety zone' - the office bathroom. i foolishly opened the trap to let him out before i removed the stuff fom the counters and shelves. next thing i knew, the yellow boy was jumping 8 ft in the air, like a maniac, trying to find a way out.  he was leaping up the wall, across the room, hanging from the molding and the lip of the mirror. it was a freaking circus. toothbrushes, handsoap, candles, clock - all were flying around the room with the flying wallenda brother in the bathroom. OMG

 

over the next few hours, i checked on him several times, and could see he was adjusting a little better to his new surroundings. i had put a carrier, litter box and soft pillow along with food in there to ease his adjustment, and tried to leave him alone.  he ate the food, piddled on the pillow, and finally hid in the carrier.

but the acrobatics had ended.

 

 

three days later -

he is still in the bathroom, safe and warm.

the snowstorm did its damage, but thankfully, not to the little yellow boy.

what we do with him now is still an unknown. 

but he lets me come in and sit with him.

i sing (very badly) songs to him which he seems to enjoy :) 

his favorite seems to be 'away in a manger'...i think the words speak to his personal story, and his years of laying his sweet head in the hay.  but i could be imagining that.

 we are going to have to figure out

what the longterm plan is for yella fella,

but for now the next step is to attempt to touch him.  

AND for us both, yella boy and me,  to live through the attempt.

wish us luck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



a gray day...

everywhere i looked,

there were different shades of gray...

i think i counted 50 shades :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sidenote - oddly enough, on the day that the photo challenge was 'something gray,'

the world cooperated with a gray day. 

i decided to stop at a cemetery after shooting at Gray's Beach on the cape

and see if i could get gray headstones. 

i took a bunch of pics and spooked myself -

not the best idea since i am here alone at the cape -

but when i went home and uploaded the images,

i realized that this headstone was honoring a woman named Rebecca Gray. 

 

so on this day, 10/2/12, almost 150 yrs after she died,

on 'something gray' day,

i too honor Rebecca Gray  :)

and another odd thing - i JUST realized that the texture i used to enhance the gravestone shot was kim klassen's 'partings'   it all comes together sometimes, doesn't it :)



double the fun

so this week has been intense...
it started out with the challenge to take self portraits on the beyond layers course with kim klassen.
 

my twin sister and i have done

the hold-the-camera out in front of ourselves

for the past few years

 and have loved having the pics to look back at.

so i thought this would not only be fun,

but a great project to do for a year. 

i called my sister, marilyn, and we decided that

we'd each do it individually for 365 days. 

it was a big commitment for each of us but it felt right.

we're 57 yrs old and looking for what we're calling 'fulfillment over fifty' and this seemed like a great starting point.  who are we, at 57? 

day 1 was a good time - we both liked it alot. we sent images back and forth through the beauty of cell phones.  fun stuff :)

day 2 was still ok -

the project seemed do-able, the pics were still fun...

i created a new blog to keep track of it all. 

and i was looking forward to day 3...

day 3 was a horror story. 
we both started to realize we have gotten older. 
good grief, we may even have gotten freaking old. 
and that f-word is the cleaned-up freaking (again, cleaned-up...) version. 
no amount of blurriness, or over-exposure was going to hide the fact, from myself anyway...
day 3 hurt.
 neither one of us was ready to give up the project but i can say that body parts other than my freaking (yes, again...) face were going to be center stage all year long.

day 4, i was wiser. 

feet do not look old,

when they are covered with shoes...

and i actually love this picture. 

day 5 was Friday. 

Friday the 13th.  i had concerns. 

my self-esteem was shaky.   i didn't want to feel like i looked old anymore. 

on the other hand, i can't take pictures of my feet all year.  and i really wanted the year to be a learning experience, showing me to myself, finding out who i have grown into.  

i had taken more than 100 pictures of myself this week. 

some i liked, some i hated but i did learn stuff. 

i learned like to walk.  and i need to get a haircut. 

and i can hide the belly fat at this time of year.

all good things to know... 

so i went for another walk at the river to find a good picture for how i was feeling... 

i wandered the roads and pathways, looking for something that would speak to me. nothing seemed meaningful. as i turned around to walk back to the car, thinking i would go home and take a picture of my hands with a beer in each one of them, i walked into the fading light of the day.  and all of a sudden, it seemed perfect.  utterly perfect. 

me, from behind, walking into the light...  

it felt like a picture of what i want to get out of this year. 

i loved it. 

i went home and drank the two beers, in honor of my breakthrough :)

and then, one last picture, to finish the week of painful growth...

 enhanced with kim's textures and brush.

thank you for the week of wisdom. i think :)

scary stuff

friday
apr 8
the word of the day was SCARY...
another tough word to go out and find. who is picking these words?? oh yeah me. as joey says, it wouldn't be fun if it were easy...

so after great thought, i drove to Six Flags. it's not open yet but i crept up to the fences and shot pics of the roller coasters. the security guards were circling, wondering who the old lady was that was spying on the place. i left them to their imagination and went home for pizza.

i didn't want to show up on facebook with only a lame picture of a still roller coaster, so after pizza, i talked joey into taking me to the reservoir down the street - fast moving black water scares me to death. i got a few shots and had to leave - i then hyperventilated all the way home.

people still made fun of me but i knew i shot SCARY stuff.