Ready Set Go!

Dear readers,

When arriving at a reasonable age of maturity, making a fresh start is difficult. The modern term for feeling tapped out or hitting rock bottom requires one to push the RESET button, the question is how?

I spent years working dead-end jobs, so I pushed the RESET button, and at the age of twenty-eight grindmy way through college. The payoff was an entry-level position at a Theatre Company as a junior manager. Diligently working my way up and after thirteen years, upper management said to me that I had “Hit the Glass Ceiling.”

RESET

I achieved another degree in Education and advanced from teaching in public school to the position of college adjunct lecturer. Once again I knocked on the door of the Chairperson, and was told that my years of experience and dedication to my students has not gone unnoticed, but, I need a DOCTORATE to acquire full-time status.

RESET

Years of living comfortable, independently and privately in my own space, I had to down size and relocate to a closet size apartment. There are days that all I have the energy to do is sit in my favorite chair sipping Merlot and thinking “REALLY.”

RESET

I am going to make peace with my tiny living quarters. Maybe living like a minimalist is what I need. By June 2017, I will complete my final Thesis, not for an advancement in my career, but for personal satisfaction, and I shall remain dedicated to my students. I no longer feel the need to seek approval from an Institution that bends the rules to accommodate some, but play by the book with others.

Maybe it is time to take my finger off the RESET button and press fast-forward.

What Say you?

Is it Just Me?

Dear readers,

My son says, “Embrace the transition,” Well i say, ” excuse me for having a moment of insanity.” It’s been 22 days since I was ousted from my home of six years. I’ve never been without my own SPACE. I’ve relocated from one place to another but always to a place of my own for me, myself and I plus a pet or two. I’ve never had a roommate. The word roommate scares me and sends me into a place in my head that I don’t want to visit. I’ve lived alone for 23 years. It wasn’t easy at first this living alone. I was divorce at the age of 30 after six years of marriage. I made many adjustments like: learning to cook for one, how to sleep on both sides of the bed, to keep the mattress from getting lopsided. Eating alone and coming home to an empty house was the most difficult part of being alone. The bed is colder in the winter without the warm of that extra body. Over the years I had my own version of roommates’ dog, cats, three parakeets, a turtle named Franklin and a fish called bear.

I buried myself in establishing a career as an educator, developed my skills as a writer, playwright, and singer. Mother of one fabulous son and grandmother of three, at the age of 53, I can’t call myself homeless, but it feels like I am. A friend and her 24 years old fresh out of Boston College son took me in. So, what all the fuss? I have a good roof over my head, my own room with AC, close to the bathroom, and in an area of the house that is quiet.  It’s only the three us, we have different schedules very much like ships passing in the night. It took me 10 days to unpack and to personalize the space I now live in. I can’t say home, I either say the space I sleep in or the place I live for now.

I feel like a caged bird. I miss lying across my sofa and channel surfing. I miss my weekend Saturday breakfast tray in bed and the afternoon nap. Or coming home siting in my favorite, big, black, leather chair and relaxing with a glass of Merlot and listening to Joseph Hayden’s Mass in the Time of War. I feel like I’m tip toeing around. I worry if I made too many trips to the bathroom, or kept the lights on too late blogging, reading and grading papers. As soon as I arrive there I would prefer to go directly to the room I sleep in, but not to seem anti-social I sit in the dining room and chat.

I have spent 23 years of my life living alone. Besides having the occasional boyfriend. I dwelled in my own space alone. My son says that I should embrace learning how to live with other people. He has a point. I just might end up with a roommate, I live in New York City and the rents are $$$$$$$$$$$$. Living with a roommate scares me more than living alone.

Stay tune for more…………………………..