WELCOME TO MY BLOG

This is my first blog in many years. Blogging has changed a lot since the days of MySpace, before SEO and algorithms ruled the world of internet content. But two months of unemployment and birds chirping outside my window gives me spring fever. I want to write. Writing is my passion.

A ROUGH WINTER

My sister Pam died right before Christmas. She had been my best friend of 60 years (my entire life) and a part of me died with her. It was a long battle, nearly 10 years, with cancer – originally Stage 3C, then nearly 6 years of remission before coming back with a vengeance at the end of summer 2022. And just over two years later, she is gone. My heart is broken.

The same week she died, I had taken a new job, and just like that, both were gone. I decided this was as good a time as any for a sabbatical. Only now I just want to find something to bring in some money. My background is the printing industry, graphics and prepress. Nobody wants a designer who isn’t an expert at web design. And my inability to lift 50+ lbs keeps me from the more manual jobs. So I keep looking.

ON WRITING

Like I said, though, writing is my passion. I have written much of my life: journals, planners, song lyrics, the would-be novel, and of course blogs. I am still somewhat unsure what I will write about, what my eventual niche will be. But that will come. I am sure of it. The universe will provide.

MOCHA AND WONDERLAND

I am both a coffee and a tea drinker, and my idea of cozy is a warm mug and a book. I like cozy mysteries especially, and perhaps will review a few here in the future. I am trying to learn to like black coffee, but so far I do better with lattes and mochas, and the traditional hot chocolate. Or herbal tea. I can always drink tea, hot or cold.

I sometimes think I would like to be a barista.

Wonderland is my name for my world after Pam, after loss. A world of wonder, of joy in grief, of beauty in sadness. Wonderland is my world of hope.

… AND HERDING CATS

I have my two cats, who I swear keep me sane. Misty is six years old, a black and white mask and mantle cat, dainty and sweet, but fiercely independent. She’s a rescue, and one half of a bonded pair I adopted in December 2016. She believes everyone is a friend and tries to play with everybody who comes to visit.

The story goes that at 1 year old, she met Cory, a half-year-old kitten, and the rest was history. I like to imagine she found the kitten and adopted it as her own. Cory is five years old now. He is my Monster Cat, coming in at 18 lbs of muscle, a gray and white cap and saddle gentleman. Unlike Misty, he is terrified of strangers. It took him a full year to learn to trust Pam.

WINDS OF CHANGE

The cold, damp chill of winter seemed to mirror my own life in these first months after my sister’s death. Now that it is March, the cold has given way to sunny days of promise, albeit with the two-often severe thunderstorm (this is tornado alley, after all).

It’s been nearly two months since Pam went away. Last year at this time she was preparing to go to France. She loved to travel, both here and abroad. I think she had been to at least 30 countries. It pales to my own feat of one foreign country, and that was two days just over the border in Canada 35 years ago.

And now, I feel like she has gone on another one of her trips, and she just hasn’t returned yet. So I just wait for her to come back home.

Grief is funny like that.

WHAT’S NEXT

I am still applying to jobs. I have another interview next week. After some two dozen interviews I don’t have my hopes up, but I do need work. I hate having to live off my savings and dipping into what should be a retirement fund. Meanwhile, I will work this blog, and maybe eventually it will turn into something useful. And maybe others will get something out of it as well. I hope so.

Spring is here. Life goes on. Time to find out how to adapt to this brave new world.