Plans, Reality, and The Unexpected

 A year ago, I was enjoying what I thought was going to be the last summer at my house.  Of course, we were all stuck at home, so I was spending a lot of time out in my yard.  My yard is my sanctuary.  I can sit out in the day and read and enjoy the nature; at night, I can sit out for hours and just look at the sky.  I will miss that, but it was time to be moving along.  My plans were that I was going to move sometime in the fall.  It is now summer 2021, and I am still here in my current home.  I am on some waiting lists for several apartment complexes in the area, but I am still not sure whether a home or apartment is right for me at this time in my life.  Some things are very much up in the air.  But I trust life enough that there is a new place for me, with new neighbors to meet, new experiences, and it will a place that meets my needs.  Why am I still here?  There is a complex answer for that.  Part of it is that with the pandemic, housing of various forms is not readily available.  The other part was that there were financial realities of the situation.  Last summer, I experienced a completely unexpected loss in my life.  I was not in any way expecting it, so I had to take the money I was saving towards the move and apply to expenses towards the loss.  I was also a bit overwhelmed and did not likely have the energy for such a big change after such an unexpected time of grief.  As fall turned into winter, I decided that I did not want to try and move when I would need to anticipate snow, ice storms, etc.  I said March I would be willing to move and start the process.  Whichever placed opened up, that was where I would go.  

Last year around this time, I checked my work email on a random Tuesday night because I had forgotten to order an accessory I needed for my laptop and needed to find out what to order.  I never in a million years expected the email that was waiting for me.  A longtime employee was leaving at the end of the week.  Did I want to take over the responsibilities of his job?  Hell yeah!  It was one of the crown glory positions.  I was pretty much managing one of the other accounts, and I enjoyed it.  However, their company was furloughing its employees due to the pandemic, and a lot of our work was drying up there.  The months of April and May were a bit lean, and so was my pay.  Problem solved!  I moved into the role very well.  I did it with my full attention and devotion from that day on.  At the end of last year, my company was anticipating a large new contract with a new company, and my boss wanted me to work on that when it started.  I was thoroughly enjoying what I was doing and did not want to move to the new account, but good luck telling your boss that.  To my own credit and abilities as a worker, my boss wanted someone experienced and who had good communication skills to be able to teach others what to do.  My responsibilities were given away as of March 1.  And there was a major problem-the new company and mine were not coming to a satisfactory agreement.  There was no contract.  My responsibilities were given away based on a contract which did not even exist.  I tried very hard to get even half of my responsibilities back, but my boss would not budge. I had a few things to do each week, and I mean a few.  My income was decreased over 75 percent.  Then things got ugly.  For privacy reasons, I will not get into it.  But, I learned that it was not a good place for me to be.  My boss was never a warm and fuzzy person, but I saw an even worse side.  I needed a new job.  And it could not have possibly come at a worse time with the summer coming up and really needing to get out of here.  Nothing was changing with the project until around a month ago.  The contract did go forward, and the new project began. I started on the new project because I still had not found a new job.  Any job is a good job when the bills need to be paid and you need every dollar coming in.  

A few weeks ago after having numerous training meetings for the new project, on a random afternoon, I got an email from my boss. If it was okay, I would be moved back to my old position.  Again, hell yeah!  I really missed it.  I know the job like the back of my hand, and I enjoyed the accounts I was working on.  I moved right back into it, and it was like no time had passed.  The reality, though, is that time had passed, and I still need a new job.  But, the crazy thing was, I thought I was moving on to a new job, not stalling where I am. I still do my job, but there is nothing left of me personally there.  When I move on from something emotionally, I never go back.  I am doing my duties but am still looking around for a new job.  Life had me back around the bend again, as it were.  

And that is the fascinating part of life.  Life is full of twists and turns.  My life has certainly had no shortage of challenges, and there was very rough part I hit at the end of 2015.  It got very narrow, and I knew that it was going to be a sink or swim time for me.  2016, I sunk.  The losses that I had at the end of 2015 were expected and not a shock, but they really left my life empty.  I had trouble going forward.  The holidays of 2016 in particular were rough.  I sat on Thanksgiving morning wondering how I even had the strength to get up and go to my family's celebration.  I did, and I always do.  I was still struggling well into 2017, and there were some more complex things that happened over that summer, none of which were positive.  At the end of 2017, I had the opportunity to hear a speaker and author who survived a near death experience.  I had to drag myself there that night, too.  His words resonated with me.  He discussed how when he was entering the death process that his whole life passed in front of him before his eyes.  He ended with, "We are all going to die sooner or later.  My hope for you is that when you get to that time and you see those things pass before your eyes, there are much more happier things than bad ones."  That night, I decided that I needed to somehow move on and give it one more shot.  I want to stress that I do not believe in that nonsense like "The Secret" and the New Age belief that when you put out intentions the universe lets everything line up in your favor.  But I will say that when I truly intended to move on, doors opened in my life like you would believe. And they all had one thing in common-they were totally unexpected.  And good.  The only bad unexpected in the past few years was the loss of last summer.  Everything else was good.  For example, a few months after that night, I got a call from a close relative on a random Monday morning.  They ran into another relative of mine who was a huge part of my life from the time I was a child.  There was some kind of feud and they did not speak for years.  That meant the rest of us were caught up in it as well.  On a Monday morning, they both ran into each other face-to-face at the grocery store.  Neither one could even determine why they stopped speaking.  They reconciled in the grocery store, on a random Monday morning.  Were they expecting that?  Probably not.  I sure as was not expecting to get a phone call with that story on a random Monday morning.  But I was very happy about it.  Now my long lost relative is once again a part of all of our lives, at family get togethers.  

I have had many other times like this in my life where just randomly, things happened. And other times, what seems lost in the moment or for a long time will come back around.  We just don't know when. Maybe I will share those stories some other time.  But for now, I will conclude with this.  Life is rather unexpected, but it is what makes things so much fun.  These past three and a half years have been totally not what I thought they would be.  They are actually much more interesting, happy, and full of new people and experiences than I would have believed possible.  I have adopted the life philosophy of "expect the unexpected."  On this day approaching mid-June, I am still at my current home and at my current job, but I expect both to change sometime within the next several months.  

So, what's next for me?  I really don't know!  But what do know is that I look forward to it, because the unexpected has been very good for me.  And I love new things and new experiences.  Stay tuned, I will surely talk about them all.  

Gods, Goddesses, and the Parents Who Raise Them

 I spent part of my education in a small, private religious school.  It was so small that several grades were combined.  Our teacher was "Mrs. Gilmore."  Mrs. Gilmore had a daughter who was one year older than me and another one year younger.  She grew up in a family where her brother was the shining star of the family, and she let everybody know about it.  Mrs. Gilmore would stop classes to give lectures on how she "demanded" respect from us, rambled on about her brother and how he did everything right, how she was neglected, etc. on a weekly basis.  As an adult, I realize that she needed professional help.  In addition to her lectures, damn the torpedoes, her daughters were not going to be slighted in any way, shape, or form.  The older daughter "Terry" was the shining star of the family.  She sang, played the piano, when she got old enough she played the limited sports that the school offered. Terry was hard to get to know.  She had a few close friends who were somewhat cliquish, and that was it.  I never really gravitated to her because she seemed rather guarded and not very much available.  Mrs. Gilmore's younger daughter "Louise" was likely academically gifted.  She was very smart and motivated, but she was also extremely withdrawn and very quiet.  Louise had one friend, but she was always nice to interact with.  I felt more comfortable with her than Terry.  Mrs. Gilmore saw students who were as equally or more talented than her daughter not as the special children that they were; rather, they were a threat.  I was always a good student, and I excelled academically.  When I wanted to take certain courses, my mother had to go to the school and fight for that to happen.  The workbooks I needed "disappeared" and mysteriously reappeared when my mother paid a visit to the school and demanded that Mrs. Gilmore search her cabinets.  My best friend "Katherine" was a hell of a lot better athlete than Terry was.  There were times outright where Mrs. Gilmore told Katherine she was not allowed to play in games because her academics were not up to par, but she gave no evidence of that.  Terry was to be the best player on the team at all times, nobody else could be.  And then there were the school awards nights.  There were a few categories where children had the opportunity to work towards goals and earn awards for that, but mostly these were made up.  Every year, the rest of us students and parents sat rolling our eyes at each other because the Gilmore daughters won just about every award that Mrs. Gilmore could create for them.  My final year at that school, they took home 24 awards between them.  Because my friend Katherine remained at the school until her graduation, she asked me to attend.  As a surprise to no one, Terry was the valedictorian.  The minute the ceremony started, Terry started crying.  Everyone else seemed happy; Terry was a mess.  When she got up to give her speech, Terry started sobbing and could barely get through the speech.  Katherine's mother told us that she realized her time was up.  She was going off to college, and Mrs. Gilmore could not be on campus to orchestrate her daughter's success.  As an adult, I think Terry realized that she was ill-prepared to go out into the world.  The summer between her freshman and sophomore year, Terry got married and never came back to this area.  My mother thought that she was running away from her life with her mother and took the first way out.  

I have a relative who works in childrens' sports and also in high school sports.  Believe me when I say, there are a lot of wonderful students who I have seen play out their high school careers, and I feel like a mother hen when they graduate.  They come from wonderful families who encouraged them and taught them that sports are about more than winning and losing.  On the flip side of things, I have heard the stories about parents who believe their child is much better than they actually are.  How their children deserve to be playing more, why their child deserves to be on a team when they have not reached the team level as of that time, etc.  And there are parents who are quite vicious about it.  They are demanding, they attack the referees/umpires/coaches abilities, and sometimes even their character.  What are children learning when their parents try and bully others into bending the rules for their children and allowing them to participate when they are not that talented?  More disturbing, they are raising a group of children who believe the rules to do not apply to them.  They believe they are special, deserve better treatment, and can be monsters as an adult.  In my state, there was heated debate about whether sports, particularly high school sports, could be played during the pandemic.  In the end, there were no massive outbreaks of COVID, and everything was completed rather safely.  My concern was that I saw parents ardently arguing that their children deserved to play, even when we did not know if it was safe to do so.  They were not willing to accept no not because their children were not appreciated, but because there was a major health crisis and we simply did not know in the beginning if a deadly disease would claim the lives of young people.  In the same manner as the Gilmore daughters, eventually their parents will not be able to pressure the chancellor of a university to get their way or the head of a company when they want a dream job and someone else gets it.  

I realize something as an adult that I did not realize as a child or teenager.  Children like the Gilmore daughters, or any child who is pushed by their parents to fulfill their unmet emotional needs are not the enemy.  They deserve compassion and understanding.  Those children are certainly not getting it at home.  My best friend's mother worked at our school and got to know a lot of us in high school.  Years later, we had a conversation about our class valedictorian "Melissa."  Much like Terry, Melissa was involved in many activities, was on several sports teams, etc.  I felt about Melissa like I did Terry.  Melissa had only one good girlfriend and had a clique with boys and girls around her, but she was also very guarded and hard to get to know.  She wasn't unpleasant by any means, but I never could get anywhere close to her.  When told this to my friend's mother, she told me a totally different observation.  "I saw Melissa as an absolutely terrified young woman who was constantly walking around trying not to make one mistake."  And she was right.  When you are trying to co-exist with children who are being pushed unrealistically into the visions their parents see of them, it can be difficult.  In the case of Mrs. Gilmore, I and my fellow students felt the results of it personally.  But, those children and teenagers are suffering and really do not have the same opportunities to just sit back and be a kid.  Or, they can take to toxic behaviors such as drugs, alcohol, and eating disorders in at attempt to cope.  

In closing, I would say that there are no easy fixes for this because this is not on the children, it is on their parents.  I have no doubt that it is difficult when you grow up feeling slighted because of sibling, or maybe you had a parent with unrealistic expectations, you had low self-esteem growing up, etc.  It is not your children's job to fill up those holes.  It is yours.  Lord knows there is help and counseling available to work through these things as an adult as you become aware of them.  I think that is where the major problem is here.  A lot of adults still lack the insight into their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.  Every single one of us encounters people like that every single day, and they do have the potential to make every person they cross have a miserable day, even if not about their children.

If you are an adult and reading this, think of the children or teenagers who have these types of parents with compassion and understanding.  Understand that deep down, they are perhaps lonelier than the children around them.  Say a prayer for them, or send good thoughts, or simply be nice to them if you interact with them.  Or, if they are close to you, let them be themselves around you even if for a few minutes.  They deserve that.  

The Wonder of Books

 One of the wonderful women who opened my childhood to a world of stories, Beverly Clearly, recently left this realm at 104 years young.  Apparently I was not alone, as I saw very many touching tributes to her and her beloved characters like Ramona Quimby.  Like many, I also thought of Judy Blume who will always remain my first favorite author.  Both of these remarkable women and storytellers will forever be a piece of my childhood, and I am grateful for both of them.  I am also grateful for the love of reading that these special books had in my childhood.  I remember a lot of things, but I can't remember exactly which was the first Beverly Cleary book I read and in which grade.  What I do remember is in third grade, my wonderful teacher had a big tree along the wall with a cutout of our names.  There were a lot of branches, and the goal was to get to 125 books read by the end of the year, moving up the branches in increments of five.  I quickly jumped out to 15 books, ahead of all of my other classmates.  I moved steady up the tree the whole year, and I was the first student to make it to 125 books. I also had the highest number of books read the whole year.  That year, I wrote my own book, illustrated it, and my teacher helped me laminate the cover.  I sewed the pages together with yarn, took it to our wonderful school librarian, and she put it on display in our library.  I just always loved reading.  I love stories, whether creating them myself or reading others.  

I specifically remember the first time I met Judy Blume.  My fourth grade teacher started reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.  She read chapter one for us, and I was hooked.  It happened to be the weekend, so on a trip to our mall I went to Waldenbooks and purchased it myself.  I read the whole book that weekend.  Then came Superfudge, Iggie's House, Deenie, Blubber, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret.  A few years later, Just As Long As We're Together.  Judy's books reminded me in many ways of my own life, and she had such a keen way of articulating the ups, downs, joys and challenges of childhood.  She never shied away from tackling subjects which were considered taboo, but were nonetheless important for children to think about and discuss.  Thankfully, Judy ventured into writing for adults, so we are never without stories from her at any age in our lives.

The other books in my later childhood and teenage years which defined those years were Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators.  When I was 12, I ventured into the library one summer and found The Mystery of The Moaning Cave.  I read it and couldn't get enough of the books.  I always loved mysteries, and these did not disappoint.  The creator, Robert Arthur, wrote mysteries for radio programs.  He imagined a world of children where they solved crimes without today's luxuries like a computer, GPS, tracking devices, etc.  I was taken back to southern California in the 1960s and 1970s where three intelligent, gutsy boys who tangled with art thieves, jewel thieves, international men of mystery and even royalty.  The books are still very much a part of my adult life.  I collected them around 15 years ago through the gift that is Ebay and still read them every summer.  In around a month or so, I will get them out and enjoy them on hot, sweaty summer evenings.  They are fun to read outside in your yard when it gets dark, or late at night like I used to do on summer nights.  

As an adult, I have read just about everything-biographies/autobiographies, mysteries, fiction, historical fiction, true stories, some crime novels and political memoirs.  I belong to a book club and we have had several hosts over the years.  One thing that they have had in common was that despite their own preferences, they always picked books which spoke to me.  I swear, there have been books which have helped me to answer some of the deeper questions we all have in life.  Some have provided healing for me and helped me to end what seemed like years of not being able to accept some of the events that I had no control over in my childhood and teenage years.  Within the last year, I have had the opportunity to read some excellent books which spoke to me in profound ways.  The first of those was Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano.  The protagonist in the book was the sole survivor of a plane crash.  While this was fictionalized, Ann found inspiration in the 2010 story of a young man who was the sole survivor of a plane crash.  She, like me, enjoys creating the end of stories for people who she finds curious.  The book explored the bigger questions of tragedy, healing afterwards, and about what path you find yourself on in this life because of it.  I recently finished Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey which spoke to me about the importance of knowing yourself, trusting your gut, and understanding which way to go in your life.  I have always considered myself to have a strong gut and understanding of myself, but sometimes life gets in the way.  What I learned from Greenlights is that when we do understand ourselves, it is the right path to follow. At this moment in time, I find myself in a very difficult position with my job. It was a reinforcement for me to know that I know what is best for me and to keep moving forward.  And then there was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  It is a book about a young girl whose mother was not able to properly take care of her in World War II Germany.  It is not a book for the faint of heart.  It is grueling and narrated by death.  But it also dares to go there and tries to give a voice to all of the horror of that time.  Most importantly, the protagonist in the books learned how to survive almost impossible circumstances.  Despite the theme of death, there was a lot of wisdom and hope of survival in this book.  There are many more I could write about, but those in particular really spoke to me in a strong and meaningful way.

I just love books.  When I go to a library or a bookstore, I walk out feeling invigorated.  I am excited and felt like I experienced the whole world.  You can experience the whole world in books.  You can see faraway lands, learn about cultures you never knew about, and still link the common humanity of all of us.  I enjoy biographies and autobiographies because I always love to learn about who people are, the experiences that shaped them, and how they find resilience.  I love fiction because someone had such creativity to birth characters and stories that entertain us or educate us.  I love stories which inspire me or provide me with some kind of wisdom.  Most importantly, I love the authors who have stories in them and need to tell them.  

THANK YOU to all of the wonderful authors who have touched my life.  You have given me so much. I had an author I really respect tell me that I have the soul of a writer.  Where does it go?  To be continued... 

The Good Side of Social Media

 There have always been two things that are true of me: 1. I have always been late to participating in trends and 2. I am a very private person.  Both of those things are not conducive to being a social media type of person.  I always perceived social media as more negative than positive.  I saw lots of fighting, opinions, and downright nastiness towards strangers. That isn't me off of a computer, and it is certainly not me behind screen, either.  Also, if you deal with difficult people in real life (as we all do), you may not want to subject yourself to that on an extended basis.  I did participate in message boards.  (For those young people reading, a message board was a place where you could interact with other Internet users lol.  Just kidding!  You probably know, but they are pretty much a thing of the past)  I enjoyed message boards because you talk about literally anything which interested you with other like-minded people.  Or not.  You might have shared a common hobby or interest, and all kinds of discussions broke out about other topics. Message boards afforded you privacy. If you chose to put pictures up of yourself, it was completely your choice. You could interact with others at your discretion.  I did meet some nice people over the years, but message boards started to die out in lieu of platforms like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.  I resisted for a long time, even though it meant I couldn't keep up with people like others do. It wasn't worth it to me to lose my privacy.  I did start reading some public pages, especially Twitter.  There were sportscasters in particular who provided up-to-date information that I appreciated.  It was nice to quickly find information.  Most of my family encouraged me to just sign up, never post anything, just get some information.

Fast forward to summer 2020.  I was grieving, having a really bad day, and I made a crazy for me decision.  I joined Twitter.  I joked with myself and said that people have done a lot worse.  I never intended to really post anything, just get some more streamlined information. But,  I got the opportunity to meet lots of nice Mets fans there.  I got to follow some of my favorite authors who have Twitter pages, I got much more up-to-the minute astronomy news than I ever did before.  And I started posting!  It was like the world's biggest message board.  Literally anything I could think of I could post about.  I have always enjoyed, even without a social media account, reading up-to-date reactions from people about TV shows, sporting events, and the news. On 9/11, I found myself drawn to the countless thousands of stories that were being posted, pictures of people at the World Trade Center during happier times.  It was like I could experience a collective experience with many others who felt the same way I did.  On January 6, I got on with thousands more, reading their real-time reactions to what was happening.  I really do like to connect with others over shared experiences.  I suspect a lot of other people do as well.  And I had a way to do it.  All of these things are good things for me.  I also decided going into it that anything in life is what you make of it.  If things got too intense, I reserved the right not to participate in discussions, etc.  And even though I am passionate about politics, I limit myself because lord knows I have enough discussions off of the computer.

I am not sure how what thread or who I was reading, but I came across a Twitter user whose goal was to end homelessness.  He had studied the issue over years and was in the process of starting a non-profit to put a program into place.  I have been working with the homeless population as well as those who are living in poverty since I graduated high school.  The first thing I did when I graduated was take a weeklong trip to New York City.  I got to see firsthand the lives of those living on the streets in the largest city in our country. A city with so much wealth, yet there was an out-of-control homeless population for whom little was being done. And we certainly have this problem in every city, including my own. Through my previous employment, I got to work with those living in poverty.  Things have only gotten worse over this past year.  And things will continue unless we have visionaries who really want to tackle this problem. I was not sure of the name of the poster, I knew his Twitter name.  I followed him, and I really looked forward to hearing his proposals. He kept people up-to-date on the progress he was making on his non-profit becoming a reality.  I thought that perhaps in the future he would be a voice that we would hear more from.  Perhaps our paths would even cross in real life.

On Easter morning, I was reading Twitter when a post came in from our advocate friend.  As it turns out, his real name was Scott.  I do not know his last name, just that his name was Scott.  Scott's sister came onto Twitter to tell us that he had passed away overnight.  Even though I never met Scott, I felt quite saddened by the news.  Scott had a real vision, and he was working to make this world a better place.  Nobody really knows much about him, and we all were wondering what might have happened.  What I do know is that Scott indeed was a real person like all of us, and I also know that he was a very dedicated son.  He took care of his mother very well, helping her get a COVID vaccination and took care of her when she recently broke her ribs.  Scott shared all of those experiences with us.  I shared my sadness with Scott's sister and now, there are over 2,000 messages on that thread.  Scott and his life touched many people, even though most of us only knew him via social media.  I ended up gaining a lot of followers that day as well.  They all seemed to be kind, caring people who shared the same values as Scott.  I am sad for Scott's family that they will always associate a holiday with his passing.  

The truth is, every single one of us is a living, breathing person behind a screen.  Whereas many people see a user online maybe as their screen name, or someone living far from them, we are not.  Even though some people see an opportunity to be a prick, most of us are glad to connect with others. We can meet people with common interests, and it can turn into something good.  It did for me.  Social media in a very backwards way helped me navigate a very difficult time in my life.  I had always wanted to start a blog, and now I am doing so.  The world is big, and having the ability to connect with anyone anywhere is nothing short of amazing.  I am so glad that I made that crazy for me decision to join Twitter.  It really has been good.  It helped me connect with wonderful people like Scott.

Godspeed, Scott.  You touched the lives of many people in ways you probably did not understand.  Rest assured, we will continue the work that you started in your life.  May you rest in peace, and your spirit will certainly live on.  

Reflections on a Pandemic Year

 March 12 or so, 2020.

Life was good.  I was doing my everyday thing.  I participate in a several nice groups and organizations locally, enjoying our get togethers.   I have met some wonderful new friends over the last couple years of my life, and every time I saw those great people our friendships deepened.  I shopped at my beloved little market, made my fun trips to my favorite CVS and RiteAid.  And the dollar store-the bane of my shopping existence.  I saw my family on a regular basis, and we always have a lot of fun getting together.  It is loud, noisy, and always entertaining.  Speaking of family, one of my relative's teams was in the thick of state playoffs, and that was very exciting as well.  They were just one of "those teams" that were magic.  The prospect of state championship was very real, and it was a great time.  Things like that just do not happen every day, and I was having a lot of fun being along for the ride.  The last time I was at the grocery store was that Tuesday.  The clerks at the cash register were wearing masks and wiping down the grocery conveyor belt after every customer left and the new one came.  I had the thought at the time that I needed to stock up.  This scary new, unknown disease COVID-19 was starting to spread around the United States, and it was only a matter of time before I knew it would appear in my area.  So, I did stock up and made sure that I had enough of everything because I really did not want to be out and about much.  Just three days later, it was announced that schools were being shut down.  The dominoes started to fall, only essential stores were allowed to remain open, workplaces deemed non-essential were shutting down as well.  The first COVID case hit our county, and life was brought to a screeching halt in our country.  On a national level, we never really experienced any kind of shutdown in my lifetime.  This new disease was being considered a pandemic in other parts of the world, but it did not quite meet that level here in the beginning.  My parents, now both over the age of 65, were being encouraged to stay home.  I did not see anybody during that time.  On a personal level, the idea of staying inside was not that foreign to me.  I went through a period of my health being poor and I was confined to my home during that time.  Yes, it sucks.  Not being able to get out and experience the world can bring depression and isolation.  I had to laugh at the people freaking out over the prospect of (gasp!) being home as some new concept.  I was more fearful than depressed or unable to adjust in the beginning.  I thought that there were going to be millions of people dying and that we were all at such a high risk that even the mere fact of touching something that came into your home was putting you at risk.  I washed down groceries that came in, I put packages outside in my yard before bringing them inside.  (I still do that and remarkably, none have been stolen!)  My luck had run out with groceries by that time, and I had to make a trip to the market.  I was absolutely terrified to go in.  That trip was still before they knew that COVID was a mouth borne disease.  I was impressed that we were all stopped at the front doors with a worker handing out gloves if we did not have them.  No masks, though.  It was surreal.  Some of the workers looked like something out of the movies.  The ones handling fresh food had on full helmets with what looked like pure white body suits.  It felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone.  We couldn't have Easter that year as a family, and that wasn't fun.  

As spring rolled into summer, the cases hit a new low here in my county.  This was in part because we were essentially shut down by the state.  As counties became safer, it was safe to start to partially open up again.  We were in single digit cases.  Believe me, there were no lack of complaints about having to postpone life.  My feeling was that I did not like it any more than the next person, but we were dealing with a deadly disease which you did not know who had and not.  I worked really hard to overcome my health issues, and I was unwilling to undo any of that.  I would wait it out.  We saw fighting over toilet paper, protests at state capitols, people becoming irate at cashiers making little over minimum wage and still needing to work.  I saw ugliness and selfishness in its purest forms.  I saw that people were relentless in it.  For them, their way of life was much more important than the health and safety implications.  I never understood it, and I do not to this day.  The first time I was out again with my family was Father's Day.  We all sat apart from each other with masks.  It was very unusual, though I was just glad to be around people.  Sure, I saw my neighbors and we were far away enough from each other that it was safe.  And my groups that I participate in moved onto Zoom.  It was very nice to be able to connect with people and at leas see their faces.  At my job, we got hit hard the first few months.  Among other things, we had contracts with several travel and tourism companies who suspended the work we did for them.  Other companies were furloughing or laying off people.  A co-worker of mine all but quit on the spot, and I was given her responsibilities.  That really saved me.  Things were slow, but not that bad.

And then came July.  Within a matter of 5 days, I lost one of the most significant people in my life.  It was unexpected and tragic.  Having to deal with something like that is bad under non-pandemic circumstances.  It was even worse at the time.  I had planned to spend the summer enjoying what was supposed to be my last summer where I am living now.  I read a lot during the summer and love to sit out under the stars at night.  I never "require" a lot of activities which I am surrounded by people.  I did get to see my family for major events like holidays and birthdays.  Other than that, I was pretty much by myself.  But it was okay, I had everything planned.  Life often does not go as planned.  And the summer was not quite over with its losses.  I had to cope with everything going on confined to four walls.  I was kind of zoned out and grieving, so perhaps I was numb to what was happening with COVID.

As the fall came around, it came into birthday and holiday times.  One of my family needed essential surgery a week after Thanksgiving, so we did not gather.  We did not feel it would be safe.  But a week before, we did have an impromptu Thanksgiving celebration with a full dinner.  We were able to gather safely for Christmas.  I did get to go on some of my favorite activity-light drives.  It seemed like this past year, people decorated their houses even more than usual.  Maybe they felt it was their way of providing holiday cheer.  Perhaps they had more time to devote to it.  At any rate, it was still a nice, regular part of the holiday season.  Nobody gathered for New Year's Eve, but I didn't care.  New Year's Eve is never a significant or meaningful holiday to me.

News of a vaccine got everyone excited. It was like there was light at the end of the tunnel.  As of the time I am writing this, they estimate over 80 million people have been vaccinated.  Unfortunately, cases are going up in my county as well as my state as a whole.  Why?  My guess is because we are still not ready to go into the wholesale life we once knew.  People are getting careless.  I am going to get the vaccine because I want to do everything I can to ensure my health and safety and that I can get back to the non-pandemic life I once new.  Note, I did not say "normal."  We have heard about "the new normal" and what that means.  I have never liked the word normal, anyway.  I want to get back to the life I knew before.

If I am being honest, we did not handle this pandemic well as a country.  I am quite disappointed.  I grew disillusioned at the selfishness I have seen in people.  It is not only selfish not to care about others, but it is also selfish when one believes they are above the rules or above suffering.  And I am quite concerned that the paranoia about some kind of conspiracy has caused the fringe people to become a movement.  I would have never expected us to have these kinds of mainstreamed levels of conspiracy theories in the 80s or even 90s.  This year has taken a toll on all of us in many different ways.  My hope as of this writing is that we continue to move towards our full way of living and that everyone does their part.  I hope this virus is taken seriously by all and that we can have some semblance of order.  I wish that those who lost jobs, businesses, and their economic freedom will have that restored to them sooner than later.  There is one thing I do believe....

Better days are ahead.  Happy Spring!  And here is to a time of growth and moving forward, just like the flowers and trees are growing again.   

I Am an ASMR Person (and we are not as weird as you think!)

 In third grade, one of my best friends "Katrina" ended up in line in front of me when our teacher checked our spelling books.  I have always treated my books like the pristine gods and goddesses they are.  Katrina, on the other hand, had a spelling book that looked like it went through a war.  The top of the pages were bent, but it allowed Katrina to page through her book efficiently.  Our teacher followed the same protocol each time--she brought us up one row at a time, checked our work, and we sat back down.  Katrina would page through that book, and I noticed my body would feel very relaxed when she did so.  It was so relaxing, in fact, that I would start to look forward to spelling check time because of the way I felt.  I felt like I was just going to fall over onto the floor.  My back and head and everything else had this sense of warmth flow over me.  Then, in around fourth grade we started getting our heads checked for lice.  Somehow I ended up in the back of the line.  I could see all of the kids getting their heads checked, and I was glad.  I ended up with that same relaxing feeling again.  Any time we had our heads checked, I deliberately waited until the end of the line so I could watch the other kids.  And then when it came time for me to get my head checked, I didn't want it to end.  I felt this wonderful sense of relaxation and a warm feeling.  Fast forward to my teenage years when half my life revolved around my hair.  I was at the salon every four to six weeks.  When I was a child, I think once someone shampooed my hair at a regular salon sink.  When I got tall enough and went to the adult salon, I was more than ready for a shampoo at the sink.  I couldn't wait.  I felt that same relaxation feeling as I did as a child, only amplified.  I got a sensation of what could best be described as the feeling one would get when you had heat stimulation in physical therapy.  I felt this nice sensation of a pricking feeling, but comfortable and pleasurable.  It was not painful, it came with the waves of relaxation I felt in my neck down into my back.  And then there was another time when we took lifesaving classes in 8th grade.  I was the lucky person who got to be the test crash dummy or what have you for the board you would be tied to if you injured yourself in the water.  Someone had to tie up my legs and my head.  The girl who tied up my head was moving my hair back and forth in the water as well as the gauze or whatever it was needed to tie up my head.  I felt like I had happy died and gone to heaven.  That feeling of water with my hair being brushed out of my face and being treated with very light movement was tremendous.  

Fast forward again to late 2010 when I got my first laptop.  (Yes, I was always behind the times.)  I remember one night relaxing on my sofa when I got the idea to watch some massage therapy videos.  I had occasionally gotten a professional massage and had ones from non-professionals as well.  It was always relaxing to me, and I got that feeling.  Of course, you were supposed to get the feeling of relaxed muscles, that is the goal of a massage.   But as I watched, I felt myself getting so relaxed that I almost fell asleep. My body relaxed, I felt like I was in a hypnosis kind of state.  A few months later, I saw a video that said "ASMR."  I had no idea what that meant, so I looked it up.  There was a name for what I had been experiencing since I was a child.  At that time, there were not too many creators or "artists."  It was a newer phenomenon.  I enjoyed the videos at the time.  I watched a lot of massage videos, and I particularly enjoyed videos devoted to hair play.  There were some people who made medical type videos as well--a nurse taking care of a patient, a spine or back examination.  Way back when, there was a creator named CuteBunny992 who decided to make a video of a relaxing cranial nerve examination.  That turned me onto watching medical videos, and I found myself extremely relaxed once again.  While I did not get the physical sensations of ASMR, I felt extremely and deeply relaxed.  My entire body could release its tension, and my thoughts were very slow, as if I was meditating.  I would say that I could enter a hypnotic state.  Being in a hypnotic state does not mean that you are staring at someone swinging a pendulum across your face and telling you to perform a certain behavior.  It means that you have entered a very deep state of relaxation.  You can be "suggestible" in that state, meaning you could possibly change your thoughts or have someone say something to you that might influence your behavior.  I have never desired that, though I do appreciate the relaxation element of it.  And we are also in a hypnotic state in certain stages of rest, both before and after waking.

I have been now watching ASMR videos, or at least those which cause me to have that deep relaxation state, for ten years now.  Sometimes they help me fall asleep.  Other times, they help me wind down after a busy day.  The most surprising to me is how I respond to medical videos.  Granted, I will not watch an open heart surgery, but it is beyond relaxing to me to watch for instance a physical exam.  Seeing a doctor or nurse examine someone's eyes, take their blood pressure, look at their throat, etc.  And I absolutely love hair play videos, they make me relax even more than a massage video.  I watch a lot of what is now deemed "unintentional" ASMR as opposed to the roleplays, which seemed to have exploded.  My next blog entry will be about those and how the movement has grown since its early days.  One of the reasons I wanted to do this particular topic is that those roleplays have gotten to be the face of what people think ASMR is. It is really not.  I would also like to note that what may be relaxing for me may not be relaxing for someone else.  That is the beauty of ASMR.  For example, I was at a hibachi restaurant with my relatives.  One of them started to stare when the server started to clean off the grill after the food had been cooked.  I could see that glazed look in her eyes that I get.  One of her children also experience the ASMR sensation and is drawn to Bob Ross videos.  I also want for people who do not experience this to know that while I love the ability to relax and the sensation is pleasurable, I do not go seeking it on a daily basis.  It just depends.  I really do not get the prickling sensation or the deep muscle relaxation unless someone is physically touching me.  I cannot watch the videos and get that sensation.  Some people claim that they can, and I have no reason to doubt that.  

What I experienced since my childhood could be now termed as a cultural phenomenon maybe?  Look for my next blog to talk about the movement in general and where it seems to be going.  For now, I hope I helped you understand what it is really about.  It is really not about people slurping soup or pretending to be a relaxing gynecologist (yes, I am sorry to say those ASMR videos do exist.)  We might be strange (ha!) but the natural occurrences of life seem to relax us.  Never a bad thing.  

The Day Racing Lost Its Way

 They say racing is in your blood.  My father and uncle were always racing fans, they grew up going to regional tracks seeing the likes of Ray Evernham come through the ranks.  We had a local dirt track here which my father took me to when I was a mere toddler, but it was bulldozed for a mall.  In a bit of schadenfreude to the fans, the mall is now bulldozed as well, but I digress.  I was concerned with childhood and teenage things and wasn't very fond of racing during those years.  But once I hit college, the things that my father brought to my life came to grow and I started watching all kinds of racing again.  I especially liked NASCAR.  I went to my first race at Dover in the fall of 1995.   I was surprised at how small and local it seemed compared to on television.  It seemed like being at just a big local track.  At the time, Jeff Gordon was exploding into the world of NASCAR.  People did not like him because he was not southern, he looked more like a metrosexual than a good old boy, and he was immediately successful.  The cult hero had always been Dale Earnhardt.  Dale, the man who did not finish high school, who looked like he belonged more on a farm than in a room full of businessman, but was the biggest personality in a group of drivers already filled with them.  Richard Petty was called "The King," but he was not the face of NASCAR.  The Intimidator raced with a lot of grit, didn't care who he pissed off to get there, and was tremendously successful.  Most people either loved or loathed him.  Me, I liked him.  I had a stronger affinity for the Ford drivers at the time, but I did like Dale.  He made things fun.  He was a seven-time champion in the sport, and only Richard Petty had done that before him.  There was a big rivalry brewing between Earnhardt and Gordon.  Earnhardt notoriously sent him a glass of milk at the annual awards show instead of alcohol.  Nobody was going to make Dale fade away into the sunset, especially not this young punk.

Dale continued his success, although he had some injuries.  One of the few things missing from his trophy case was a win at the Daytona 500, which happened in 1998.  He infamously took out Terry Labonte to a chorus of boos in the 1999 Bristol night race.  And Jeremy Mayfield took him on at Pocono in the summer of 2000 and won.  The announcers were saying, "The Intimidator got intimated" and most wondered how Mayfield garnered the courage to do it.  Maybe it was the drugs. (LOL totally other story)  There were signs, though, that the Intimidator was starting to slow down.  The "R" word actually came up.  I just learned earlier this week that he told his owner, Richard Childress, that he was considering it.  Richard dismissed it and encouraged him to continue.  Dale was eventually going to transition to being an owner of his team, DEI, where his son and longtime driver Michael Waltrip were driving for him.  He saw that as his future in the sport.  

February 18, 2001 started out like any normal day.  I always kind of held my breath with restrictor plate races.  They always had the tendency towards spectacular flips, crashes, and pileups.  Although nobody had ever been seriously injured during a restrictor plate track, some of the crashes were just plain awful.  For NASCAR fans, the Daytona 500 is the Super Bowl.  It was still an exciting day.  I picked Ward Burton to win that day.  He had always done well on restrictor plate tracks and was enjoying a lot of success at the time.  Later in the race, he collided with Tony Stewart. Tony Stewart took a nasty flip and I thought there was the possibility that he was injured.  But amazingly, he walked away from it.  In fact, he was in communication with his spotters and said that he was fine.  Obviously, he was not able to finish the race.  As long as he was okay, that was okay.  That particular wreck took out multiple cars, as they always do.  Towards the end of the race, Dale Earnhardt, his two DEI drivers, Sterling Marlin and Ken Schrader were around the top 5.  Michael Waltrip lead the race, and his brother Darrell was in the booth calling his brother to victory.  Darrell, who retired the year before, moved to a position as a Fox analyst.  The whole thing was very touching, actually.  Darrell was in tears in the booth, ecstatic, and so was his brother, who won his first race in spectacular fashion.  It was what this sport was all about-victory, emotion, first wins, families.  Behind him, there was what looked a routine slam into the wall that collected several cars, including the senior Earnhardt.  I didn't think much of it, nobody did.  That was, until I saw the ambulance taking Dale very slowly away from the track.  I am not a medical professional, so I did not understand quite was going on.  I suppose if there was life to save, they would have been speeding.  I thought perhaps it was a broken neck.  Back at the time, I went on AOL to the racing chatrooms.  For those of you kids, there used to be these things called chat rooms, where you could get together with people who shared your interests and just talk.  People in the chat rooms were already speculating about what happened to Dale.  I thought he may have broken his back, some people talked paralysis, and others said the inevitable.  They thought he did not survive the crash.  I just didn't believe it.  It did not look that bad, and Dale Earnhardt was not the type of driver to lose his life.  He was larger than life.  I got off, had supper, and decided I would put on SportsCenter at 7:00.  I missed the first minute but as I turned it on, either Alan Bestwick or Chris Economaki was on.  At the end, whoever it was said, "And that's the kind of man he was."  Was, dammit.  He lost his life.  I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.  I just couldn't believe it.  I told my parents and when I did, I burst into tears.  My father did not believe it, I told him to turn on SportsCenter to look for himself.  Then I called my brother, who was an Earnhardt fan.  He said that he knew when Ken Schrader said, "I don't know, I'm not a doctor" that something was seriously wrong.  I talked to some of my friends who were fans, one of them said, "I am barely alive."  I think that's how we all felt that night.  Even though we had the Internet at that time, news was slow to come out.  The Internet was not the literally 24-hour news leak as it is now with things like Twitter, Instagram, etc.  We would have to wait until the next few days to find out what happened.  It was a big deal.  It was the top story on the local news, the national news, etc.  

I didn't sleep well that night.  As the night went on, I felt haunted, really.  Rarely do you see the star of your sport perish in front of your eyes, millions of people of all ages.  Imagine trying to explain that to your children.  When I did fall asleep, eventually that 3 car crashing into the wall would pop into my dreams and I would wake up startled.  I just think we all collectively experienced that loss that day.  The days following were very somber.  It was said that Dale experienced a basal skull fracture and that with that type of injury, it was impossible to survive.  They talked about the impact, the fact that he had gone so quickly and died upon impact.  In ridiculous American fashion, there were death threats against Sterling Marlin, who tapped Dale's car and sent him sideways.  Dale's grieving son, Dale Earnhardt Junior, had to make a statement to the press telling people that death threats against anyone would not be tolerated.  The following Friday, I believe, was a beautiful memorial service for Dale.  I saw it on TV, somewhere around my house is the tape of it.  The one story that resonated with me was a deeply personal one.  They asked a youth minister to speak.  Dale's daughter Taylor, who was only 11 or 12 at the time she lost her father, was a part of the children's group through MRN.  They were taking a camping trip a year or two before, and they had to get Dale's permission for Taylor to go on the trip.  The minister was nervous to speak with "The Intimidator" as he said.  He was charged with keeping this man's daughter safe, and he had to make a case to Dale to go with him.  But when went into the room to see Dale, Dale was sitting quietly on a rocking chair.  He said we spoke father to father.  He was not the man that was bumping people around on the track, he was just a dad.  

The impact of Dale's loss was tremendous and can still be felt twenty years later.  Rarely if ever do you see the star of your sport lose their life for the world to see.  We just recently saw Tom Brady win a seventh Super Bowl.  Unless there is some kind of truly freak accident, we will not see a football player lose their life.  Michael Jordan may have gotten an injury or two over the years, but nothing like this.  NASCAR was under a lot of fire for the death of their star, their hero.  And there was a tragic precedent going into that year.  There were three drivers who were killed in the various NASCAR divisions in 2000, including the grandson of Richard Petty.  Young, talented Adam with the big Petty smile, died at the age of 19 after a crash at New Hampshire.  Kenny Irwin, another talented driver, was killed at New Hampshire in another instance later that summer.  In the truck series, driver Tony Roper was killed after a bad crash.  This should have been a wakeup call, but these were somewhat ignored.  After the death of Earnhardt, these things could not be ignored anymore.  A safety device was mandatory, and "safer" barriers were put into place so that the impact would be lessened if a driver went head first into the wall as Dale did.  As they stated on the race on Sunday, no drivers have lost their lives after Dale's death in the major divisions of NASCAR.  Last year's Daytona 500 we thought that Ryan Newman did not survive a horrendous crash.  Newman, a graduate of Purdue University with an engineering degree, worked with NASCAR on safer designs for cars.  He likely helped save his own life.  

I still think there is work to be done in safety.  Sunday night's final lap featured a fiery multiple-car crash where once again, you were hoping that everyone was okay.  I cannot honestly look at a crash like that and say that NASCAR has mastered safety.  There still needs to be a higher standard.  Dale would have wanted that.  As for Dale's legacy, there will never be another like him.  I think something was lost that day that never came back to the sport.  When you lose your star, the person who is larger than life, it takes something out of you.  Innocence is lost.  The sport lost its true north that day.  I guess it was a reminder that even the toughest of drivers and people are not above losing their lives. Everyone is invincible.  I will remember Dale fondly for his determination and passion for what he did.  He was driven to be the best, and he was.  He may be gone, but he will never, ever be forgotten.  The spirit of Dale Earnhardt will always be with us.  If I could tell children who never who never saw him race about him I would say, "He gave it everything he had in this life.  You do the same."