If someone had told me in 2022 that 2024 would bring me—not quite full circle, since I’ve never been here before, but here, to a place where happiness and contentment actually live—I wouldn’t have believed them for a second. Not a chance. That kind of thing is for storybooks or rom-coms that only exist on the big screen.
What began in the fall of 2023 as an e-Harmony connection with someone who lived two hours away has blossomed into a life with someone I could have only dreamed of—and often envied in others. Now that 2024 is drawing to a close, it feels like the perfect time to reflect and write it all down, if only to preserve these moments forever.
After being invited to move in with him, I packed up my beach life and embraced a new chapter with my new love in April. In May and June, I spent three wonderful weeks in Ireland on a pre-planned family trip. Then, in July, he and I set out together on an incredible two-month adventure visiting our family and friends from Florida to Michigan, including a big family reunion in Grand Rapids. It was an unforgettable journey of connections for both of us.
In September, we traveled to St. Simons Island, just south of Savannah, Georgia, for a week-long reunion with his siblings. It was a chance for me to get to know his family better and see the place where they had vacationed as kids.
October took us to Oklahoma, where we visited my son’s family and enjoyed the grandkids’ extracurricular activities. For Thanksgiving, we flew to Sacramento and drove to the charming town of Jackson, California, to celebrate with his daughter and her family. While there, we took advantage of our location with a visit to Lake Tahoe, the local wineries and the indescribable tall trees!
And now it’s December. With all the travel, we decided to stay closer to home for the holidays. We’ll be spending Christmas in the oldest city in the country, St. Augustine, Florida, probably THE best place to immerse yourself in the holiday spirit.
Not a bad year at all—and certainly not one I could have predicted for myself. But after reading The Secret, I suppose it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. If you take nothing else from this blog entry, take this: read that book. It truly can be life-changing.
I wrote this post in September of 2020. This was mid the COVID shutdowns, pre-election, and sometime after the George Floyd protests. I can’t remember why I didn’t post it, but I’m posting it now despite the months gone by because, frankly, not much has changed.
If we really want to bring about change, if we really want to bring peace back to society, as hokie as it sounds, it needs to start at home. And as nearly impossible as it would be to change things at this point, we need to think about the messages being sent and received via the movies, video games, and social media available to our kids and the rest of us. Have you heard about Evil Dead, RoboCop, Natural Born Killers, Kill Bill? Of course you have. And our kids have seen them. Have you ever played any of the violent and graphic video games? They have. I will concede that these types of media do not cause violence in young people. But I absolutely believe that it desensitizes them to violence by way of a reset button. If you think the ratings listed on the jackets of these games and movies prevent teens and pre-teens from being able to watch or play, think again. We didn’t have the vast quantity of these problems before these movies and games. And I’m not referring to racial tensions. I’m referring to the overt violence that’s out there and the overall disrespect, entitlement, and antipathy among so many of our young people across all races.
Sorry.
This isn’t going to be fixed overnight. We’ve a helluva long way to go before the pendulum even begins to swing back. I believe it’ll get worse before it gets better. They’re now calling for the dismantling of police departments. (Who will they call when help is needed?) There will be no more Aunt Jemima (sorry, Nancy Green) or Eskimo Pies. Hey, here’s an idea! How about we keep Eskimo Pies and get rid of excessive violence in movies and video games? Uh, no. Sorry. Too much dinero to be made there. Think of the Seven Deadly Sins, and we’re not far off.
The message is there if we can get back to it through the clutter of Antifa, COVID, hateful rhetoric from both the left and the right. Racial inequity needs to end, so how about we stop referring to people by their color or ethnicity. Refuse to select your ethnicity on all forms. Don’t allow our leaders to politicize ethnicity to get votes; they’ll only bail on you once elected. Look at history, and see who actually did something about change rather than who just talked about what they’d do ‘if elected!’
I’m so tired of it all. I’m not interested in debating one single thing. I don’t know it all, nor do you. I just know it has to stop.
I live in Florida. We went through pretty much the entire 2022 hurricane season with no named storms. To say that’s unusual would be an understatement. But October and now November have more than made up for it. I remember the song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Gordon Lightfoot where he sings of the gales of November. I always thought that had to do with the Great Lakes; Lake Superior, in particular. But now I’m not so sure.
Mid October Ian crept slowly towards our peninsula building in strength, keeping everyone guessing until it made landfall at Fort Myers Beach as a high-end CAT-4 hurricane. After dragging itself through, the devastation left behind was mind-boggling. Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel Island, Captiva, Pine Island – flattened; obliterated as if bombs had gone off leaving the islands and shores barren; half-erect buildings leaning into now empty lots strewn with debris. It even took out a bridge cutting the mainland off from the island as if to say, don’t bother; there’s nothing for you here now. As it moved slowly across the state, it caused major flooding from west to east.
I truly thought that would be it for the 2022 hurricane season. There were a few storms that went towards Central America, but it looked like we would be in the clear until the season ended. We weren’t.
Nicole, a very disorganized tropical storm, was edging itself towards a CAT-1 and then scaling back, wobbling a bit to keep everyone guessing where she would land. The east coast area south of Vero Beach ended up her target, though since it was such a huge system (700+ miles wide), the entire coastline was in the zone. We took precautions. We knew there’d be some power outages. They closed bridges to the mainland. But it was a CAT-1. What’s the worst that could happen?
The top photos are in the area of South Daytona. I cannot imagine what this has to feel like as a home owner. The last few are in Flagler Beach. I won’t go into the particular heartbreak I feel for Flagler Beach; I lived there over 10 years and fell in love with it. But what was is essentially gone. The homes didn’t get the destruction the Fort Myers’ area did, but the beaches, the dunes, the walkovers – when all is said and done, it’ll never be the same. In the repairs and reconstruction to come, they will have to forego the aesthetics and concentrate instead on the stability and function of a maybe not-so-attractive alternative if we’re to keep any semblance of the area alive.
So on 11/12 I’m fairly certain the worst is over as far as the 2022 hurricane season. But it has wreaked havoc across this state. I think no one, outside of the Panhandle perhaps, came through unscathed. Is this to be the new normal? Have the warmed seas now made way for future gales of November?
As of right now I’m unsure whether I want to find out.
I saw this humungous white feather recently while spending some time with my daughter at the beach. I knew Mom and Dad and all our loved ones were smiling down and watching over us.
Several years ago, after meeting David, I was updating passwords. I used the words ‘newme…’ in many.
But that was the old me; I know that now. That was the me that settled, that overthought, that didn’t listen to my gut, my Holy Spirit, the me that lived with ‘shoulds’ and ‘what-ifs’. And look where it got me.
It got me to believe in myself. It got me from the thick of the forest and the depth of the rabbit hole to the clearing on the other side where I’ve learned I don’t ‘need’ anyone else to be happy with myself. I’ve packed and moved twice in as many months. I’ve assembled all types of furniture, fixed my e-bike and my car, put up home hardware I never had before, all the time relying on ME. And the feeling of accomplishment I got is so much more satisfying than I could have imagined.
Believe me, I’m still a work in progress. I still have to learn to accept God’s love for me even when I don’t understand it. Would I like someone to share my life with? Sure. But I now know that I won’t settle for the same ol’, same ol’. I may never have that ‘love of my life’ feeling, and I can accept that gladly. But I will have a life that I love.
I have to write this down while it’s still fresh in my mind. And then I have to email it to myself as a daily reminder to NOT SHOP AT WALMART! I don’t know how people regularly shop there much less WORK there.
I literally had to talk out loud to myself this afternoon to get myself to go to Wally World. Publix is right around the corner, but they didn’t have some of the items I needed, and when I checked online, Walmart did. I put it off as long as I could, then I finally said to myself, ‘Self, just get it over with. Try the one south of here; maybe it’s better than the other one.’ That was around 4:30.
Two hours later, after discovering they didn’t have any of the items I specifically went there for (yep, I could’ve gone to Publix), I went through the self-checkout because God forbid there’s anyone working the store checkout lanes. Packing up my bags, I headed outside only to be stopped by a drenching downpour. I waited about 10 minutes then said the hell with it and headed to my car. It let up on the way home.
I made two trips up and down the elevator with bags. I was starving, so I quickly scarfed down some food while putting things away. I eventually realized I was missing several items; like about $15 to $20 worth of chicken salad, deli turkey, cheese, eggs, bread, wraps! I went back to the car to see if I’d left a bag there. Nope. I tried calling Walmart, but by then it was going on 8:00 p.m., and the phone just rang and rang. I thought I might wait until tomorrow to go back but decided, no, just bite the bullet, get in the car and drive the 20 minutes back to the store, now in the dark.
As I was walking into the store there was a man at the entrance leaning against the wall. When I walked past him, his little dog lunged at me, just missing my ankle. The man barely looked up. Inside I asked who to talk to about my groceries and was directed to customer service (I use this term loosely). I told her what happened, she looked through some book, asked if I had used the self-checkout, then said, ‘Yeah, someone probably came up after you and just took your bags. It happens all the time.’ Then she walked away.
Seriously?
Maybe it was all a self-fulfilling prophesy. I don’t know and I don’t care. But the next time someone goes on and on about how much money they save when they shop at Wally World, or how can I shop at Publix when it costs so much more, I may consider sharing this story with them. Or not. It doesn’t matter. I hate that store.
"After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning,
And company doesn’t mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts,
And presents aren’t promises.
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman,
Not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build all your roads on today,
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn that even sunshine
Burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
that you really are strong,
and you really do have worth,
and you learn and learn…
With every goodbye you learn."
By Jorge Luis Borges
My last few posts have been, well, depressing is one word that comes to mind; a little disturbing since now, looking back, I see the progression towards the rabbit hole I’d tried so hard to resist and avoid. But there it was, lurking just beyond the forest as I made my way through. Or at least I thought I had.
I’m not going to repeat the past months here, only to say that I had hoped I could stay at White Feather for at least a year. Turns out I could not. Turns out I had six months, which would have had me looking for another place to rent in the midst of snowbird arrivals and holidays. I couldn’t face that, so I started looking for a rental. Again. Everything was overpriced, overly small, or just a room in a house. The fact that I looked at Facebook Marketplace at all still surprises me. But again, Mom is up there guiding me in ways I’m not aware of until afterward. On there I found a 2/2 condo on the third floor of a 55+ complex on the outskirts of Ormond Beach – yes, I now have a Daytona Beach address – but it overlooks the pool and the Intracoastal and I have it for a year, at least. I again started packing. I arranged for movers this time, and in mid July, I got the keys to my current place. I’ve had to start completely over again. Oh, I had some kitchen stuff, a lamp or two, my office. But no furniture to speak of. No bed, no dresser, no living room, dining room; nothing that makes a home livable. Thankfully the place had some very old, very dated things in it that got me by until the house sale when I was finally able to hit some used furniture places and start filling it in.
I think it’s so interesting how we perceive ourselves. I’ve gotten through some pretty difficult times going back to my teens, and usually, at the time, I’d wonder how I was going to do it. This past year is almost a repeat of the period my dad died, though I won’t go into that. Suffice it to say, this wasn’t my first rodeo. And while my head was going in a million different directions still waiting on the house sale, still waiting on the divorce, planning a move again, juggling all that, my days consisted of going through the motions of putting one foot in front of the other, falling into a fitful sleep, and repeating that the next day.
My friend Anita and I share a common experience with what we call ‘the rabbit hole.’ It’s a dark place that gets more comfortable the longer you’re in it. Comfortable to the point where you don’t want to climb out, you don’t want to interact with anyone; not your friends, not your kids; you just want to lay down and be miserable in your misery. That’s where my good friend Chris found me the last time. After sharing her experience and how she finally came out of it, I decided the next day to contact my doctor who suggested we try an antidepressant. He said it could take two to three weeks to see results. Silently I wondered if I could make it that long. He called it in. It was a low dose, so I wasn’t expecting a miracle. I know about depression and chemical imbalances in the brain. Again, the rodeo thing. I was loathe to go back down this road, but I knew I had to do something.
Morning came, and it was as if a fog had lifted and pulled me out of the hole. Just like that. I woke no longer feeling the heavy weight of sadness and despair that had plagued me. It wasn’t as if I were high or giddy. No. It was an evening of my mood, a balance that wasn’t there before. My tolerance and patience came back. I wasn’t crying or tearing up suddenly. I was … relieved. If it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t have believed it could happen that quickly. What it suggests to me is that the stress of the past six months had taken its toll on my body, both externally with the eczema, and internally in my brain, knocking out whatever that pill replaced so that I could function again, live again, enjoy the sunrises and sunsets again.
I think I’m on the other side now, or at least pretty darned close to it. It’s been less than a month that I left Flagler Beach, but it seems like a lifetime ago. If you’ve never experienced a deep depression, first be grateful, but second, don’t underestimate the seriousness and scariness of it. I don’t ever want to go there again. If I have to stay on these, I will, but we’ll see. I will be forever grateful to Chris who most likely saved me from either being Baker Acted or not being here at all. I think there’s only so much one body can take. When this happened long ago, I had family around, lots of friends, my kids were younger and more dependent, and my mom came to my rescue. It was different, but it was still scary. This time it was just me. I’ve always believed that I’m strong, that I have what my dad used to call MOXY. And maybe I do. I’m still here; right?
Now I need to look forward and stop dwelling on what was, on what happened. It’s in the past. Everyone has problems. Everyone goes through hard times. Some have people around them, but some do not. I’ve learned to be more compassionate, more patient. I don’t judge. If you have been lucky enough to avoid the rabbit hole, be very grateful. Too many people don’t make it to the other side.
LiviKnit 