Shtick This! Ten Years of Joyous Freedom

Ten years ago, I filed for divorce -- the absolute best decision I ever made in my entire life. The only thing that would have made it an even better decision would be if I had filed about ten years earlier than I did! My bad.

Ten years, though. Wow. As they say, time really does fly when you're having fun. In recognition of those ten years, I thought I'd compile ten of my favorite accomplishments from these past ten years.

Number 10: I finally had a one-act team qualify for state, and it happened when my daughter was a part of the team and had a major role. 

Number 9: I took up water color painting and found out that I have a bit of a knack for it. I really enjoy painting, especially landscapes that involve beachy or mountainous scenes as well as sunsets and sunrises.

Number 8: I acquired a complete collection of all the Pulitzer Prize winners of fiction and have now read most of them. I also added extensively to my home library of books and organized it.

Number 7: I completed thirty years of teaching high school Spanish and English as well as coaching a variety of non-sport activities over those years.

Number 6: I bought myself a motorcycle -- and a Harley this time -- after a twenty-some year hiatus from riding. It was my gift to myself when my divorce was finally final (after a year and a half -- ugh!). Riding the motorcycle has added so much to my life. I became an American Legion Rider and met Kim all because I had that bike. Additionally, I've met some good friends, and riding is a great stress reliever.

Number 5: I traveled to Holbox Island (for a second time and where I again swam with whale sharks, and that should probably count as its own accomplishment because it was amazing!) and other places in the Yucatan of Mexico, New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, Asheville, many other places in Tennessee, Tybee Island, Niagara Falls, Boston, Dallas, Branson, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Minnesota and the Mall of America, Kansas City, Jefferson City, Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, and many other places. I can't wait to revisit some of them as well as get to new places in the coming years.

Number 4: I got to see both of my children graduate from college and go after careers they love. While this isn't necessarily my accomplishment, I consider it at least partly so because I helped them so much along the way. Sam, my daughter, is currently completing a master's degree in paleontology, so she's not fully invested in her career yet, but she is working at a dig site affiliated with her college. Trevor is a coach and educator.

Number 3: For two years, Silvia, my dear friend -- and original foreign-exchange student -- lived with me. She and her daughter, Constanza, stayed here while Silvia pursued a belated business degree at the community college in Norfolk. Unfortunately, Silvia got very ill before she could thoroughly complete what she'd set out to do, but she did manage to finish her associate's degree in business, and the college mailed her diploma to her in Mexico. For the past year and a half, she's been on dialysis awaiting a kidney transplant which she's now on the cusp of getting. I pray that all goes well for her, so she can continue chasing her dreams, one of which involves the two of us running a part-time writers' retreat in Mexico.

Number 2: I met Kim, the most generous man in the world. He's been great to me and to my family and friends. Since we both suffered through long, agonizing marriages, we understand the trauma those leave on a person's soul and we've been able to build each other up. We've had almost eight years together now, and I hope for many more.

Number 1: I began a full-time career as a writer. In doing that, within a short span of time, I've published two more novels, got my column placed in a second newspaper, made a number of in-person appearances at libraries and book festivals, started a word newsletter and a YouTube channel, and added Instagram and Facebook author pages. Leaving teaching to invest in my dream of being a writer is, by far, my greatest accomplishment, and I hope to be doing it even longer than I taught.

I know that I can safely say that most of these things would NOT have happened if I hadn't gotten a divorce. It freed my soul which, in turn, freed me to do and be the things I was meant to do and be. 

I look forward to seeing what I'll accomplish with the next ten years. 

Shtick This! Common Things Now Uncommon

Nostalgia has hit me hard recently. Probably because I'm in my 50s and not exactly sure how that happened or because my children went so damn fast from being children to being adults who don't really need me anymore or because our world sure seems to be sliding fast into a big, ugly hole of politically "woke" hypocritical nonsense lately that I just want to go back to a time when things were (or seemed) simpler. 

Here are some things that I wish were common again. These are listed in no particular order but rather as they pop into my middle-aged and tired brain.

1. How I miss good late-night comedy. If Johnny Carson could come back from the dead and see what his world has turned into, he'd immediately turn around and jump back into his grave. That man was funny. His skits were funny. His commentary was funny. He had style and class. I haven't been able to sit through more than two minutes of late-night comedy shows for years now. They simply suck. When they are capable of thinking for themselves again, then maybe, just maybe, comedy will return to the late-night stage. I hope it does. I miss it greatly. I love to laugh, and I wish late-night comedy was even remotely funny.

2. I miss riding in the back of pickup trucks. There was nothing better than piling into the back of a pickup truck with your friends or cousins or all the neighborhood kids and going for a ride around town. My grandfather would always be sure to hit every bump especially hard and then laugh as he watched us nearly bounce out of the truck bed. Dangerous? I suppose so, sometimes, but he would have stopped and picked us up off the road if we'd actually fallen out. Fun? Hell, yes. Now, if you try to throw a dozen kids in the back of your pickup truck to take them for a ride through town, you'll be pulled over and given a hefty fine. Heck, you might even be arrested for child endangerment and who knows what else. I'm so glad I was a kid when riding in the bed of a pickup truck was legal.

3. As long as I'm writing about the back of vehicles, I really miss riding in the rear-facing back seat of my parents' brown station wagon. I don't really miss fighting with my obnoxious little brother back there, but he and I also had great times riding back there during the long drives of our family vacations. We'd wave at truckers and get them to honk their loud horns, we'd wave at other drivers and get them to wave back at us, and we'd just sit and watch the road spool out behind us. When we'd tire of facing backwards, we'd hop over the seat and sit in the forward-facing backseat, and if my brother would leave me alone in the back seat, I'd stretch out and take a nap. Naturally, we weren't buckled in, and that added to the joy of long car trips because we were free to roam as needed while being cooped up in the car. I realize that seatbelts are a wonderful safety feature, but I will always be glad that I grew up in a time when they weren't mandated. 

4. I really miss the days of fewer (and perhaps no) mandates. I was a kid, so I'm sure there were mandates that I didn't even know existed, but that's my point. Kids nowadays are surrounded by mandates. Their lives are mandated to death. All our lives are mandated to death anymore. What happened to the freedoms of childhood, let alone the freedoms we're supposed to enjoy as citizens of the U.S.A.? 

5. Instead of having an overreaching government making all my decisions, I'd like to go back to letting either the Magic 8 Ball or those little paper fortune tellers rule my life. At least I could trust what came out of them. I wonder if I remember how to fold one of those paper ones? Will I be rich? Famous? Living in a castle? Only it can tell me.

6. Perhaps the thing I miss most about the "good old days" is actual privacy. Big Brother is alive and well and hanging out with us every single day in the form of our "smart" phones, our "smart" TVs, our "smart" cars, etc. The only things that aren't "smart" anymore are us. Databases know more about me than I know about myself. Social media and social sites allow kids nowadays to invade each other's privacy in ways I never could have imagined when I was young. Then, if you wanted to know something about someone else, you had to resort to learning it from good old-fashioned gossip, and if you wanted to be mean to someone, you had to put time, effort, and thought into it. You couldn't just write a nasty text or comment or meme or any other damn technological invention that would be delivered seconds after you created it. No, if you felt the need to trash someone else, you either had to be brave and do it to that person's face or you had to craft a note that you'd then have to try to sneak to that person. Perhaps along the way, you'd actually grow a conscience and have second thoughts and not actually be mean, or perhaps an adult such as a teacher would see your sneakiness and take the nasty note from you before you could deliver it to your target. Not the case these days. Any bully or mean kid can just go online and learn things about you and then twist those things to his or her self-serving intentions and then immediately send you a horrible and harmful message. If only this meanness stopped at childhood, but it doesn't. Adults on social sites are even worse, and things get shared and blown out of proportion so quickly that it makes your head spin. Having true privacy not only cushioned us from evil intentions, it also slowed the process, so that things didn't boil up at the speed in which they do now. George Orwell knew what he was talking about. Too bad nobody really listened.

7. I really miss the days when the news actually reported the news. Reported. Not spewed on and on with opinions that other "reporters" are saying on every other news program. Reporting the facts and letting viewers form their own opinions. I miss that. Walter Cronkite, you are missed, sir. By me at least. I stopped watching the evening news years ago. Occasionally, I turn it on to see if things have improved. They haven't. I prefer to read the newspaper because then I can take my time and formulate my own opinion about what I read, but I'd like to watch the news again, if it ever returns to the days of truly reporting the news. 

That's enough nostalgia for today.

I miss all these things that once were so common, but the common things that I miss the most are COMMON SENSE, COMMON DECENCY, and the COMMON COLD.