I am back on my blog

Fall at home in the mountains

I have not posted on this blog for a while. I was so busy while at home with household chores and with catching up on Netwest responsibilities that the weeks flew by.

Also, I had no computer access for a while as my old Dell finally had to be retired because it was too obsolete to handle some of the new programs. Seems that computer companies find a way to make you purchase a new one no matter how much you love your old one.

I am very fortunate to have a friend who spent forty years working with computers and in the digital world. With less than would cost me to buy a new one, he created two computers for me with all my documents intact and the programs I use. He synced my laptop with the two desktop units and now I have computers in both places where I spend my time and my laptop is updated as well. 

He would not like me to mention his name, but I am very grateful for his generosity of time as well as knowledge. I still had two monitors from computers I used to use in my studio. He adapted them and they work fine. 

I hope to be back online and teaching again next year. 

So many of my friends are former students from over the years, going back to 2008. Rebecca Gallo was a young student of mine at that time. She lives in Europe now and writes a delightful blog about her exciting life. She and her husband work from home on their computers. She teaches math and he works with a computer company. They can live anywhere they can get the Internet. Recently they decided to move out of the city of Valencia Spain to a small town in Spain. They have the opportunity to experience various lifestyles in a variety of places.

When I compare my choices of a career when I was a young woman to the choices Rebecca has, I feel just a teeny bit envious. If I had it to do over again, and I was a fresh college graduate today, I would pursue a career in writing and using the computer to make a living. My family was practical and insisted I do something that would support me and be dependable for as long as I wanted to do it. I was a good teacher of children for fifteen years. I loved my students and enjoyed seeing them every day, but it was a stressful job and I, being an empath, carried their heartaches home with me each night. I had no authority to fix anything. All I could do was show them I cared.

My husband, Barry, died in 2009. We had hoped to grow old together and fully believed we would. But life is not guaranteed. I did not believe I would be left alone because he was always healthy and athletic. He took no prescription medicine until he had a heart attack in his fifties. But even after surgery, he was far healthier than I. I have had three complex surgeries. I have chronic pain in my back, my knee, and from fibromyalgia. I deal with respiratory problems, also. So I just knew he would be here long after I was gone. Tonight I learned that 80 percent of men die married. Eighty percent of women die as widows. Many of my friends have lost their husbands and faced the tough experience of living alone feeling like half of themselves is missing. 

I think as long as we have a life partner we are relevant in this world. We take care of each other. We are needed. But when we are left alone, it is often hard to feel relevant. People with children don't want to be a burden on them. The children don't need them and unless they can find something in which they can serve others and enjoy what they do, they might feel life is over for them.

Helping others, especially writers, is what makes me relevant today. So, I am champing at the bit to get these health issues taken care of and be back in a classroom, online or in person, with adults who want to learn to improve their writing, or who want to write about their unique lives. 

Things I am grateful for tonight:

The midterm elections are over! I feel so much better knowing that most of American citizens want what I want - people working together to do what is best for our democracy. 

I felt like I could breathe after the elections and look forward to lower prescription prices, seeing bridges and roads improved and made safer, better health care for more people, and other things that have been passed but will become reality in the coming years. 

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you live in the USA, and if not, I hope you take the time to be thankful for your life.