A Simple Woman

Daily writing prompt

If there were a biography about you, what would the title be?

“A Simple Woman” would be the name of my biography, with a little bit of irony and a bit of truth.

When I was younger, I was complicated. I have a history of childhood emotional and sexual abuse which led to untreated bipolar disorder, and I was a bit of a mess because of that. I didn’t always make great decisions, although I generally didn’t make disastrous ones. I was lucky that the drunk/stoned driver I got in the car with didn’t go off the road. I had lots of unrequited crushes. I made choices for boyfriends that didn’t bode well for marriage, and the first one I did marry betrayed me. I was considered by one friend as “the most stable person [he] knew”, which made me wonder who else he knew.

My life now is simple. I have done lots of therapy, am on good medication, and am living a more stable life than before. I’m married to the right person. My life now doesn’t make for a riveting story, and I’m grateful for that. I look at my past life, which bordered on scandalous, and I hardly recognize it now. How did I make those decisions?

I do sometimes think I was more interesting when I was younger, but maybe it was in a Chinese curse sense (“May you live in interesting times”). But I’d rather have this simple, stable life.

No Fate

Daily writing prompt

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

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I used to believe in destiny. When I was younger (in my 20s and 30s) I felt that certain relationships in my life were fated to be. These were dramatic relationships with equal parts elation and turmoil. In their time, each relationship was The One. Until they weren’t.

Nowadays, I think destiny was the artifact of bipolar disorder. When one is elated, one believes in destiny, a shining path toward a happy ending. One never gets the happy ending, because one is stretched to an irritable attenuation, and then goes skidding into depression. Destiny dissipates in depression.

Nowadays (with age and medication), I don’t believe in destiny. I don’t want to believe in destiny. It is a destabilizing influence. I would rather have this mundane life without destiny. I can read about destiny in books, where it is safely captured in the pages.

Coffee

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite drink?

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Photo by Pascal ud83dudcf7 on Pexels.com

Coffee is my favorite drink. I have been drinking it since I was a freshman in high school. I started drinking it because my mother and aunt would sit around at restaurants and drink coffee and talk for hours, and most restaurants did not give free refills on sodas. (Nowadays Americans get free refills on soda, which might explain how so many of us consume too much sugar.)

At home, my husband and I roast and grind our own coffee. We have the freshest coffee in town. We also have a high-end automatic drip pot which makes a rich brew. We are spoiled on coffee.

I drink less coffee than I used to, having lost some of my tolerance for caffeine since I lost 80 pounds. It is still my favorite drink; I just drink half-cups of the stuff. It caffeinates me just fine. I don’t like the feeling of being over-buzzed anymore, like I did when I was younger. No more double cappuccino — Turkish tea — Arabic coffee — more Turkish tea days for me (that was the day I finally had too much caffeine to drink in my youth).

So give me coffee in the morning.

Daily writing prompt

What were your parents doing at your age?

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This answer isn’t too exciting, but it explains why I want to be retired so badly. Both my parents retired at 62. My mother was seven years older than my dad, so she retired first from the Census Bureau, where she was a supervisor out of the Chicago area for ongoing surveys. (The Census Bureau does not just do the decennial census, but ongoing and occasional surveys like Current Population Studies and Health surveys). Mom retired to do things like cross-stitch projects until my dad caught up with her.

My dad retired from his job as an equipment installer at age 62. He worked at several different places over his career without ever moving from his job. He started at AT&T Long Lines, then Western Electric, then AT&T Technologies, then Lucent Technologies. “Work isn’t fun anymore,” he said, and then it was time for him to retire. The picture above is where my dad worked for many years when he wasn’t installing electronic switching equipment throughout the state.

My parents retired well together. They spent their time doing projects and traveling, usually taking several-day trips through the US. Occasionally they would visit me. My mother would decorate anything that didn’t run away fast enough at Christmas time. I credit some of their longevity to the fact that my mother was a night person, and my dad a morning person, so they had limited time to get on each other’s nerves.

My life is different. First, I will not get to retire till 67, which is when Social Security and Medicare come up for me. I have five years left to go. I don’t know how long I will live past then, because my mom died at 76 from cancer and I don’t know if I take after her. My dad died at 86, so maybe I take after him. We’ll see.

I just feel like I should be retired by now.

In Search of Great, Amazingly Fantastic News

Daily writing prompt

You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

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I could use some great, amazingly fantastic news. My life has featured none of that for a few years. It’s been a time of bad news, starting with the presidential election a little over a year ago and continuing through my husband’s job loss. I’m not sure what I would do with great, amazingly fantastic news.

Yes, I do. The first thing I would do is contact my husband. I suspect that anyone getting news like that would share it with someone. My parents aren’t around anymore, so it would have to be my husband. I would probably message my husband rather than call him. Why? Because my hearing is bad enough that I don’t like phones:

“Guess what?”

“Mrrph.”

“What?”

“Mrrph.”

No, it’s not quite that bad, but it’s close.

If it’s great, amazingly fantastic news, I probably still wouldn’t be able to get off work, so we’d have to celebrate later.

I can’t even think of what would be news that good. I don’t buy lottery tickets; my job doesn’t have any advancement possibilities since I’m not going for full professor, and I can’t retire early because of the lack of health insurance. So this is not likely to happen to me. But I can pretend.

Hobbies I’ve Abandoned

Daily writing prompt

Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?

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I lose interest in hobbies all the time. Usually, after a near-obsessive interest in them and buying plenty of supplies. For example, scrapbooking. I was going to scrapbook my wedding. And I did, until I got married, and then I never finished it. It’s been almost 20 years, and I am not done yet. It’s all sitting in a box somewhere. I discovered that I don’t know how to lay things out on a page so they look interesting.

And then there’s gardening. I am quite interested in gardening until I actually plant something, and then I forget to weed. I’ve even gone so far as to start seedlings in my basement, many many seedlings. I can’t find them in the garden by the end of the season.

It’s embarassing how many hobbies I’ve abandoned over the years. Breadmaking (I had two sourdoughs that were healthy during COVID) and fountain pens (they’re all sitting in a case) and sewing (I never had the coordination for that).

Writing is the only hobby I’ve maintained over the years. Even when I get tired of it, I persevere. I finished my problem novel the other day and immediately went to edit it. (I will put it back into the drawer to get some perspective, I promise.) Writing feels like a hobby I can actually accomplish.

No, I’m Fine for Now

Daily writing prompt

Do you need a break? From what?

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I don’t need a break. Yet.

I just started the spring semester at work three weeks ago, and before that I had a three-week break. That’s the way it works in academia — we get decent breaks, but we don’t get to say when they’re going to be. No taking a week off in February to escape the snow.

So I’m pretty rested. I teach three classes in person (the fourth class is an internship) and I have intense teaching days on Tuesday and Thursday, but I don’t need a break from the routine yet.

By the time I get to Spring Break (early March), I will be more than ready for a break. More than ready.

Done with the book

I am finally done with “Hiding in Plain Sight”, my latest book. And I am done with the whole thing. I think this book needs a long hibernation in a dark drawer before I touch it again. It is not a good book, and I don’t say that lightly. It is the first draftiest version of a first draft I have written since my first copy of my first book. It tells rather than shows way too often, and I don’t know if it’s salvageable.

At the same time, I already know what I need to do with the last two chapters. I just don’t know if I have the energy to do it yet.

This Story

The story I’m writing is going so badly. I don’t think I’m ever going to finish it, even though it is mostly done. There’s not enough action in it; too much emotional drama; too much talking. There’s not enough there there.

I should probably finish it and then relegate it to a figurative drawer somewhere to age. Or rot. I’m not sure which.

I’m not feeling a strong affinity to writing lately. It could be because of this book. It could be that I don’t like this book because I’m not feeling like much of a writer. I’m not sure which, but this book is making me grouchy.

Too much stuff

I have too much stuff. I have wearied of a materialistic lifestyle, although I don’t know what I’d do without the gadgets I have amassed over the years (sarcasm). I have some collectibles, and a collection of coffee pots (which I do use occasionally). All this stuff, however, is burdensome.

I dread the thought of ever having to move, or even clean out my garage. I think I would just sit in a corner and cry if I had to.

Why have I amassed all these things, so many of them not that useful? They crept into my life to solve problems. Isn’t that the way of consumer advertising, to play up a problem and then solve it? How many of these problems were phantom problems?

A lifetime of stuff is cluttering my house, and I don’t have the energy to deal with it.