Last year I went out with my boss and a coworker to a restaurant on my big day. This year I am unemployed, so no boss or coworker. Last year my sister Pam joined me the following day with cards and a cake and an afternoon watching Ryan Trahan videos. This year my sister is dead.
So this year it was a bittersweet birthday. My sister’s husband remembered, and my surviving sister sent hugs and greetings. A couple of Facebook friends messaged a quick “Happy Birthday.” And I baked myself a cake.
I’m Catholic, so I also have a new Pope for my birthday. (I was totally fine with Pope Francis, but we move on. So welcome to Pope Leo XIV.) I spent every weekday this week at daily Mass, three days at my home parish, and two over at another church nearby. I went to confession last weekend, and took advantage of the new Holy Father’s Urbi et Orbi blessing.
My niece-in-law treated me to a birthday luncheon, so I had that as well. My birthday was sunny but humid until late and then we had hail. It’s going to be that way for a while. More severe weather today, possible hail and wind and tornadoes. It is May in Texas. This is normal.
I got a bike a few weeks ago, and have been riding around some. I don’t think it is helping much with my weight. I need to start walking again. Need to work on my diet as well. Started growing vegetables in the back room. Lettuce is happy, but everything else is slow.
Doctor put me on an antidepressent a few weeks back, so now I have more prescriptions than I can shake a stick at. This is another thing to rope me into the constant cycle of doctors, which I hate.
My birthday was OK, all things considered. I would have liked to have had Pam here. This is the first birthday without her. It is lonely but that is the way it is when we get older. Everything changes, and we just keep going.
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.
AI generated picture
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
Misty (photo by Doni M)
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.
Cory (photo by Doni M)
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.
Photo by Doni M
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.
Welcome! I’m Doni M, wandering through my own “Wonderland” with the company of my two cats. Life has brought me through seasons of loss, and I’m embracing a simpler, yet deeply meaningful, way of living. My hope is that by sharing my journey, I can offer insight and encouragement to others on their own paths. Join me as I navigate this new world.
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