Month: March 2022

life lessons

I Was Here

mimijk

Hi my friend,

How are you doing? Life reasonably good, in spite of a helluva lot of sorrow and disquiet permeating the air (not to mention pollen and other allergens)…

There’s something that is itching in me and I wish there was an antihistamine I could take. In lieu of better living through pharmacology, I’ll try better living through expression.

When I retired from the firm (a firm I grew to love, with people I still hold close in my heart), I consulted for a while; affiliated with a company that created and presented content for the legal profession. It was an excellent segue and allowed me to learn a new rhythm to my days.

Flash forward to today, when I was asked to remove the consulting experience from my professional history, at the request of the firm. The individual who replaced me, intimated that he wouldn’t do business with this consulting firm if my name was associated with them. So I took that experience off of my LinkedIn profile.

I haven’t consulted for quite a while, and had the request been to change to a retired status, it would have been understandable. So, now that I’ve erased a truth, I feel frustrated and hurt. And angry.

I just wanted you to know that I was here. I can erase every damn piece of professional history from LinkedIn, Who’s Who, Facebook and anywhere else my name is included. I can shrink my footprint into technological non-existence. But I was here. I worked for a firm I loved, I consulted with a group of talented people, I was highly regarded until it became necessary to become a pariah. But I was here, and what I did for 22 years mattered. What I did for a few years after that, mattered. You can erase me, negate me, relegate me to a whisper of a memory – but I was here.

I know this is a huge departure for me. I will return to a post that is far less me-focused. I just had to stand proudly – for me. I was here.

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life lessons

No More Than A Musing

mimijk

Hi again,

I was driving home the other day, anticipating the delight of throwing on my comfort clothes. More than all of the pret-a-porter fashion that I purchased when I was working, my deepest affection and connection is to my flannel pants and a ‘Davidson’ sweatshirt. Large sizes are not necessarily my most flattering, but they are, without a doubt, my most soothing.

When I was in college, my comfort clothes included a torn football jersey that my boyfriend (at the time) wore…in fact that was a big thing for awhile – wearing the shirts and jerseys of guys who were taller, bigger, etc…I lived in that jersey, wearing it and washing it until it was as soft as satin. Yeah, you could say it was a weird badge of some sort; for me it was a hug. Much like my outfit is as I write this at 6:00 in the morning.

I have reached a point in my life where comfort has usurped style in the pecking order of fashion, No more heels (and those of you who knew me back in the day, remember me wearing them at every opportunity – anything to reach 5’2”). No more outfits tailored to perfection. Nope – I look more like one of Oz’s munchkins in Scarecrow-sized clothes. Don’t get me wrong – my retirement style has not devolved to the point of pity. Jeans, leggings, Vans…it works for now.

But what I crave are comfort clothes, much like I crave coffee in the morning. And there’s a reason why, of course. I watch the news and I toggle between fury and fear and heartache – so much heartache. I find myself on a trek in a medical wasteland, where tests require more tests – a medical Matroshka doll, with few doctors that seem to give a damn now that Medicare has kicked in and private insurance has been kicked out (a post for another day perhaps).

And so I stand before you – a little person in overly capacious attire, looking a bit clownish, if not extremely comfortable. I have a feeling that you identify with this need for solace. I want to house every fleeing Ukrainian family, I want to cook for the displaced, I want to heal every person struggling through these times of frailty and horror, I want to propel us to some gentler moment. Big wants, big clothes. And so, I sign off for now – sending you love and hugs. Oh, and if you want some good resources for baggy comfort clothes, let me know.

life lessons

Cue the World

mimijk

Cue the waking insects stirring in the leaf litter. Cue the flashing bluebirds swooping from the bare maple branches to glean the insects stirring in…

Cue the World

This…now. Against the backdrop of so much devastation and sorrow, these words are full of the naive colors of spring…

anxiety, faith, life lessons, politics, Ukraine,

What’s going on?

mimijk

Hi my friend,

I hesitate to open this letter with an inquiry as to how you’re doing, for I think I know.  You are struggling to stay away from the news, yet realize the importance of knowing what’s going on, your head aches with the insistent rhythm of a drum (one of the big ones), tears arrive unexpectedly – part sorrow, part fury.  You cling to the faith in your soul, yet worry that faith may not be enough.  You worry, you fret, you feel the breath of your mom on your neck.  No, I’m sorry about that last part – that’s my mom having a PTSD episode in the afterlife, and reminding me to remember too.

We shake our fists at the sky, we donate money to so many causes that it’s possible we will become a cause ourselves, we pray silently and constantly.  Our impotence is matched solely by our desire to make it better.  I wrote yesterday that it’s like yelling into a window fan.  When I was a kid, I used to stand on Roosevelt Avenue underneath the elevated subway and sing a note as loud as I could without opening my mouth too wide just to see how loud I could voice my frustratons without anyone looking at or hearing me (I didn’t want to scare anyone).  There are no elevated subways in North Carolina, so I’ve sort of screwed myself out of an emotional outlet.

So, we commiserate you and I – Putin is wrong, Trump has defrauded the government (and to those who disagree with me – so be it – but it’s been common knowledge for years)…if you’re lucky, your children turn into the kind of adults you always wished them to be, love as a verb is far better than love as a noun or adjective.  I could go on – but it’s probably better if you do this exercise yourself.

It seems like we are all going off half-cocked with our own egocentric responses to the moments before us.  Our need to control a narrative that has gone off the rails.  We grow more prideful, more adamant in our positions because we can’t be wrong.  Criss Janis has a great thought – “Pride is pride not because it hates being wrong, but because it loves being wrong:  To hate being wrong is to change your opinion when you are proven wrong; whereas pride, even when proven wrong, decides to go on being wrong”.

Is this where we are?  We refuse climate change, we deny civil rights to discreet populations because of some narcissistic need that has nothing to do with the people being harmed?  We repeat the atrocities of the past – not because we refuse to learn – but because we can’t be wrong? Seriously?

Ah my dear, I have raged for too long, with little to offer as a prescription – it’s time to bring this to a close.  But you know me – I have to sign off with some attempt at grace.  I stll maintain that we are a glorious species (if misguided and prideful),  with gifts to offer each other that are indescribably beautiful and the brilliance to put the sun to shame.  I am grateful you are here, I am beyond fortunate that we are friends, and today, right at this moment, feels like singing under the elevated.  Sending you much love…

life lessons

Hard Truth

mimijk

I am not giving intentional voice to the negative, I hope – and yet, this is worthy of a read, with the hope that at the end you’re left with the thought ‘how can I undo this, at least for me’. I for one, am not looking for more explanations as to why my thoughts toggle so quickly that one thought leapfrogs on the next, I am looking for ways to hold one cogent thought until the end…

When Facebook (and all the others) decide what you see in your news feed, there are many thousands of things they could show you. So they have …

Hard Truth