2014 Year in Review

I have been spending a lot of time lately transcribing some year-in-review material and it's caused me to think about that: what this last year was all about. Reflecting isn't always easy when the year was a challenging one.

The year 2014 started off in the worst possible place for me. I was, for all intents and purposes homeless. I had closed down my life in Wisconsin to move to Florida and live with a friend. Our plan had been to spend our silver years enjoying each other's company and living out our days in the Florida sun, on the beach.

Suffice it to say it didn't work out as planned. The details aren't important. I've accepted that "shit happens" and it certainly happened at the start of the year. So I was reborn, yet again, as a "carpet bagger". It wasn't my physical condition that was dragging me down as much as it was my mental condition. I had slipped into a very dark place.

My daughter, bless her heart, took me under her wing. For being all of 105 pounds, she's fierce when it comes to defending and protecting those she loves. I so appreciate that about her. Even when she was little, a tiny child on a school bus, she stood up to a bully who was taunting her friend and paid the price by getting physically tossed around, and yet she came back just as fierce as ever in her friends defense.

She took me in and made sure I was taking care of myself, and yes, I was that far into the darkness of the hopelessness that I wasn't really paying attention to even some of the basics. She nurtured me, cajoled me, taunted me at times to get my "sorry ass" in gear and get back to living. 

My friends in Wisconsin rallied around as well. They are such great people who have hearts of gold. They ensured I had things to do, people to connect with, places to go. They took me in, like my daughter, and helped to bring light back into the darkness I had fallen into. 

In all honesty, it was nip and tuck for awhile, but slowly, slowly, the light started shining into the corners, the heaviness that weighed on my heart so terribly started to lift and even when it seemed that I was just going through the motions, it felt like I was moving away from the "suck zone" that the depression I was battling had me trapped in.

I was able to do some work for the company that I had retired from. I was able to get more work to do online with people that I enjoyed, and by Spring, early Summer I was doing much better. I am forever grateful to my "ladies" who made sure that we had regular lunches together and just chatted and laughed and shared.

I did break off all contact with my friend in Florida. I had to in order to move on. I have come to the place where I wish her well and hope life holds only good things for her. There is no fault in what happened, just events that spun in bad directions.

My dream of living back by the beach never completely faded. I grew up on the ocean and I wanted to spend my last years by the ocean and in warmer climates (Wisconsin winters are brutal). So I packed up my things, once again, and sight unseen rented a place in Florida on the east coast and headed back down to the Sunshine State. This time my daughter decided to come with me.

I have been in Florida, on the east coast now for three months. We are settled into a small apartment that is just perfect for the two of us. I continue to do my work online and to build my book of business, and Jess has a new boyfriend and is working to build a life for herself down here.

I love getting up in the morning and opening the patio doors to hear the sound of birds singing and to enjoy the warm air. I love to hear the children playing and people going about their lives as I enjoy the indoor/outdoor lifestyle that this region affords. 

I have found and explored every farmers market, and every health-food store. I am over-the-moon pleased that we have a Trader Joe's here. The beach and ocean are a short drive away and the sun shines a lot more than in Wisconsin this time of year. 

I love the spiritual opportunities here: the church I've connected to, the Buddhist monastery that I am a part of. I love the rich culture of the area. The delightful parts of the city that have eclectic coffee shops and tantalizing import bazaars. 

Life is slower here, but that feels right as well. There is an ease of life that doesn't have to be crammed into a few short months before it's driven indoors. There is something satisfying to be able to smell fresh mowed grass year round.

I miss my people in Wisconsin. They are a forever part of my heart-space and my extended family. I still stay in touch and call and correspond and connect whenever possible. I will go back and visit when the leaves are on the trees.

So as I look back on 2014 I am grateful for all of the good that so very much outweighed the not so good. I am grateful for the people who cared about me and for me, I am grateful for my dear daughter and my dear friends, and I am pleased to be in a substantially better place than I was at the start of the year.

The year 2015 is beginning with me in a good place physically and emotionally. I have a lot to work on this year and I am excited to do that work and move towards that future me that I am excited to connect with.

Sending you all hugs and best wishes for the coming year.

Love,
Betsy

Friends...yes, friends - I love them!

Friends...yes, friends - I love them!  They enrich my life and bring such dimension to my purpose, my path. Being a friend is such a blessing and a responsibility.  Being true friends can be even more challenging when there is physical distance between friends, when those who are friends are not privy to the the day to day bits and pieces of life that build their todays.  There is so much of that which is shaping us now, that they have no knowledge of.  So the deep conversations that occurred when we shared the same space is now missing in the exchanges that are limited to emails, phone calls, and Skype sessions.  Some of these life building details will come out in those conversations, but not nearly as much as when you share the same space; when you have that constant contact and those micro interactions that build our collective todays.  I am feeling that distance and loss of intimacy with my dear friends in Green Bay.  I have been gone now for going on five months.  Yes, we do email, write notes and cards, and call on occasion, but it's not the same.  Friendship embraced in immersion in the present is the most connected form.  I miss it.  I feel the distance and the loss and it does require me to adjust.  Yes, I am building new friends in my new home, and yes, they are wonderful, special, and a blessing, but they lack the time and disclosure that is invested in those who you have been friends with for a long time.  So the change that comes with retiring and moving to a warmer climate also includes the realm of friends. Absence does make the heart grow fonder and I am looking forward to reconnecting with my dear friends in Green Bay when I go back to visit this summer.  So to all of my friends - I love you!  For those who are a part of my growing circle of distant friends - I miss you, and am soooo looking forward to seeing you again, until them we WILL stay connected.

With Love

Facetime VS. Facebook Time

I recently spent an amazing evening with two truly engaged and delightful friends.  We talked about our life mission and our divine purpose over pizza and drinks around a kitchen table while it poured rain outside.  It was provocative and thoughtful.  There was laughter and story telling and connecting in meaningful and purposeful ways as we explored and worked through a chain of ideas.  I felt alive, engaged, energized and more driven in my "becoming that which is my highest good".  The time just flew by - we started at 6PM, after a long 8 hour day at work, and we didn't wrap it up until 9PM.  On the drive home I thought about how full the evening had made me.  I was full of pizza and drink, but also, I was full of ideas and thoughts and new concepts and new ways of looking at old concepts and it felt so very good.  These times of true "face time" invited me to truly feel alive, more connected, dynamically a part of the big scheme of things.  Real time with those I truly connect with and who inspire me, challenge me, who provoke and question, and who accept me for who I am and what I bring to the table even if we don't agree.  It is liberating to be able to share one's mind without thought of being anything other than engaged, sharing, and moving through ideas and thoughts, threads of understanding, and evolving concepts.  It is one of the highest honors that I can have in my life to have people like these two wonderful beings that I can connect with, to spend time with, to celebrate and explore with.  This evening was, for me, one of those moments of ecstasy and loveliness that Sarah Teasdale writes of in her poem Barter:

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

Blessings to my dear friends and deep gratitude to a truly lovely evening.