Become My Own Friend (40 of 40)

I love this parable. The first time I heard it, it resonated somewhere deep within me. I have always been acutely aware of my own dichotomy. My capacity for both wonderful and terrible things. My ability to love the terrible in others. My preference for the messy gray areas of life. 

I am ever aware of my faults but learning to be more cognizant of my strengths. That learning curve is part of the reason this final post on my 40 by Forty blog is over 100 days past due. Well, that and the fact that there is no possible way to write "Become My Own Friend" and not sound like a total dork. Guess it’s time I embrace it. 

In an earlier post, I referenced Philautia: self love. To the Greeks, this is a two-sided love. On one hand, it can be narcissistic, self-involved, insecure. On the other, a deep knowing and honoring of oneself. A safe space to exist. For someone who has been at war with herself for as long as she can remember, this second definition sure sounds like something to strive for. 

I started in small ways. Drawing a line in the sand to keep me from re-subjecting myself to known heartbreak. Calling a cease fire to my at-times brutal internal dialogue. Trusting my gut when something feels wrong despite not knowing why. Posting on my wall of wins: a collage of daily highlights to remind me of all the lovely little things that make up my beautiful life. Doling out self-compassion like it’s my job. 

In Joshua Tree, I wrote about my tendency to see myself as uninspired. I sometimes feel like a lamp: all the potential to shine, just waiting for some outside force to flick my switch. Maybe that's normal, the tendency to rely on others to bring out latent parts of ourselves. But the longer I stay single, the more I desire to be my own catalyst. 

Washington DC with my 13-year-old (39 of 40)

The big birthday came and went and along with it, my motivation to write up the final two list items. There's something about not having a looming deadline that invites procrastination. But no more! I said 40 by Forty and I meant...well, 40 by Forty(ish), I suppose. 

Eleven days before my birthday, my firstborn turned thirteen. I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that I have a teenager. That the perfectly round-headed smiley love who made me a mama is inches from passing me up and shops in the men's section. 

13. Unbelievably wonderful with a hint of heartbreak mixed in.

My parents marked the 13th birthday of each of their three girls with a ride in a limo. This was the early 90's in a small town, so it was very exciting and extravagant. Among other things, my friends and I used our time to go through the Taco Bell drive-thru. I'm sure our chauffeur was thrilled.

Several years ago I decided I wanted to take each of my kids on a one-on-one trip to mark their 13th birthdays. Washington DC seemed like a good choice for Cash's given his growing interest in history. I planned to keep our destination a secret from him, hoping instead that we'd show up at the airport the day of our flight and he'd find out at the check-in kiosk. 

We were doing pretty good on the covert operation. Even Ava, who had inadvertently discovered the location after noticing the large amount of DC-related screenshots on my phone, kept quiet. Then, two weeks before we were set to go, Cash approached me in the kitchen.

"Hey mom, we better not be going to Washington DC since that's where the 8th grade trip is." 

I kept a straight face but my stomach dropped through the floor. Well shit. 

What is this 8th grade trip he was talking about? Why am I just now hearing about it? Is it even happening with the pandemic? And why is this kid just assuming his dad and I would send him alone across the country anyway? Should I try to come up with an alternative? 

Ultimately, forging ahead seemed the best option, but I decided against the big reveal at the airport. The potential for a mixed reaction would be a risky start to the trip. When I told Cash the destination, he promptly consulted Google and excitedly provided me with a list of his must-sees. Whew.

DC was everything I hoped for, in terms of travel but more importantly, in terms of connection with my kid. As a single working parent, my time always feels limited and divided. On particularly burnt out nights I'll sit in his room while he plays video games, a task that demands the exact amount of energy I have left (zero), but at least puts me near him. He'll explain in great detail the new upgrades or achievements he's working on and I'll wonder if he'll look back and think it was lame or cool of me.

But on our trip, we talked. Not just about video games, but also about ideas and opinions his mind is developing. About his greater interest in world history over American history. About the Smithsonian holding less of his attention than the Spy Museum (which was his favorite by far). About the hundreds of thousands of tiny white flags set up around the Washington Memorial in memory of each American who died of COVID. 

We walked for miles and then rode bikes when our feet felt like falling off. We had Starbucks for every breakfast. We returned to the hotel to watch the Office when he needed a rest. We read our books together at dinner. We saw every memorial within walking/biking distance of our hotel. We went on a dinner cruise. We made a list of movies that we should watch back home, like National Treasure and Midway. 

It was raining as we drove to the airport to fly home. Cash was content to tuck into his phone for the ride, but I made him put it away. Look around. It's still all new to us. He was quiet for a bit, watching as we sped past the vibrant greenery heavy with saturation. "I love the rain," he said. 

Me too. And I'm just so glad he told me.  

Write a Short Story (38 0f 40)

The Tail 

I’m fairly certain that my cat is trying to kill me.

I know that makes me sound crazy, but I can assure you, I am not insane. Last night, I was in the living room, dozing a bit, and half-listening to Jeopardy playing in the background. 

You can tell a Sphynx cat by its lack of hair. A Manx is lacking…

Now, I’m not usually good with trivia, but I recognized this answer right away. “What is a tail?” I mumbled in time with the contestant. A smug, satisfactory glow spread through me, rousing me from my rest.

How I know this particular fact is because I happen to own a tailless cat. She’s not a real Manx though...one born without a tail, a genetic mutation or something. No, when I got Luna, she came with her long black tail securely attached.

I sat up and that’s when I smelled it…the putrid egg-y scent of gas. I followed my nose to the source of the leak and found myself in the kitchen. One of the burners on the stovetop was turned just enough to trigger the propane. I could hear the low hiss as it continued to pour out. Mind you, I had not been in the kitchen since dinner and even then, I only used the microwave. I hadn’t even touched the stove.

“What in the hell?” I asked, quickly turning the knob all the way off and flinging open the window. Who knows how long that thing had been leaking for?! I grabbed the kitchen towel and waved it wildly about, trying to disperse the gas. 

When the air finally started to smell fresh again, I realized she had been there the whole time: Luna, perched on the counter, unflinching, watching me.

She’s always watching me.  

It started two years ago. I was sitting at the breakfast table working on the book of crosswords Janine had bought for me. She had said it’d be good for my mind, give it exercise. I told her at my age, I had earned the right not to exercise anything anymore. 

I chuckled, but she didn’t laugh.

Anyway, I was feeling rather pleased with myself, having just solved 14 Down (an eight-letter word meaning Unreasonably Anxious). I adjusted myself a bit in the seat, and that’s when I heard it: a banshee yowl so loud it toppled me right onto the floor. Somehow I had moved the seat just enough to catch the cat’s tail under the chair leg. I hadn’t realized she had been napping near my feet. I watched as Luna bolted out of the room, her long black tail bent unnaturally behind her.    

The vet had said that you can save an injured tail…most of the time. This, however, was not going to be one of those times. I had unknowingly put my full weight on it and several of the bones had been crushed. He took it off the next day. When I told Janine what happened, she suggested maybe I should reconsider my stance on exercise. 

This time I was the one not laughing.

I tried to make it up to Luna. Just because there was less of her to love didn’t mean I had to love her less. I bought her a battery-powered ball that moves all on its own, figured chasing after it would help her forget the part of her that had been lopped off. I even had Janine pick up some of that expensive canned food. You know, the type that smells more like something that’s already come back up rather than something that’s about to go down.

Luna didn’t care.

The night she came home from the animal hospital, she laid down across the room, neck wrapped in her plastic collar of shame, and just stared at me. At first I thought she was still a little squirrely from the anesthesia, but as time went on, it felt more like she was studying me.

Sometimes I’d leave her sleeping in one room. I’d go in the kitchen to fix up a sandwich and suddenly I would just feel eyes on me. Sure enough, there'd be Luna. Not as a normal cat would be, curiously curling herself around my feet in hopes of a dropped morsel or two. Rather, she’d keep her distance, peering at me from around the doorframe. 

She was stalking me, in my own home.

Last year I took a bad spill on one of my many middle of the night trips to the bathroom. (No one tells you how much sleep you will lose due to bladder urgency when you get old.) I had just woken up from a dream in which I was in a maze. 

In the dream, I needed to find something, something I very much desired, but every time I turned a corner, I would get distracted by a flash of movement behind me. I’d stop short and turn quickly, hoping to catch a glimpse of this stealth prankster. 

Time and time again I tried, all to no avail. Eventually, I rounded what seemed to be the hundredth corner and saw the thing for which I knew I had been searching...a giant, delicious-looking block of cheddar cheese. That’s when I realized it: I was, in fact, a rat. And that thing that had been following me? 

My own serpentine gray tail. 

I climbed out of bed and began to make my way down the old familiar path to the toilet when my slippered foot came down on something I wasn’t expecting. I recoiled, fearing the repercussions of once again placing the fullness of my weight onto something fragile. 

The sudden change of direction caused my balance to falter. I tried to catch myself but instead toppled headlong into the bannister at the top of the stairs. It was lucky that I wasn’t a step or two further down the hall. I would’ve missed the bannister entirely and been pitched down the stairs to my ultimate demise. 

Janine found me the next morning, sprawled out on the landing, sporting a goose-egg along with my soiled pajama bottoms. “How in the world did you manage this?” she asked as she helped me to my feet. “There isn’t even anything to trip over between your bed and the bathroom.”  

“I don’t know,” I replied, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the thing that tripped me up was small and soft.

And cat-shaped. 

Then there was the incident this past winter. The snow had been falling since early afternoon. It was really starting to stick. I love a good storm, especially now that the neighbor’s grandkid shovels my driveway too. 

I was taking one last look out the front door before bed when the light from the doorway glinted off something reflective in the snowdrift forming in the yard. I opened the door a bit further and let my eyes adjust. Sure enough, it was Luna. Dark, motionless and watching, as if she had just been waiting for me to figure out she was out there. 

“C’mon back in here,” I beckoned, feeling the chill cut through my night shirt. She didn’t budge. A frozen feline lawn jockey. 

I reached down, grabbed my slipper and tossed it her direction, hoped it would scare that stubborn beast into motion. It landed with a soft plop in the snow about a foot to her left. She turned her head, briefly glancing at the hole that my slipper had now disappeared into, and then returned her gaze to me. 

“Dammit,” I mumbled as I realized that I was now going to have to retrieve not only my slipper, but the cat too. 

I stepped my one barefoot out onto the porch, the sloshy wetness seeping up through my toes. It was cold! I prefer to spend my winter evenings warm in the living room so I had forgotten how frigid deep January can be. 

“C’mon, Luna!” I said, as I quickly hobble-hopped her direction. As soon as I was within striking distance, she bolted back inside. “Crazy cat.” I shook my head and reached down to retrieve my soggy slipper. 

When I turned back towards the porch, I noticed the light around me was changing. I looked up to see the front door swinging closed. I lunged forward, trying to catch it before it latched, but the click echoed hollowly in the stillness of the night. I tried the handle, a sinking feeling inside me hinted at what I already knew.

I was locked out. 

So I did what any sane and logical person would in that situation. I panicked. I banged furiously on the front door, demanding the cat let me in! I could see her sitting in the entryway through the side window pane. Our eyes met and she held my gaze for several seconds before standing and arching her back in a long, slow stretch. 

Then she turned her tailless backside towards me and sauntered away. 

A shiver ran up my spine. My toes were numb and my hands hurt from the cold and the banging. I hugged my arms in tight and felt something brush against my chest. It was the life alert necklace Janine had forced me to wear after my fall! At the time, I was pretty angry at her for suggesting I would need such a device, but now I could just kiss her for her annoying insistence. I pressed the button and within a half hour, I was thawing my frozen bits in a nice hot shower. 

When Janine had arrived the next day, I told her my suspicions. Luna was plotting to kill me. Janine had laughed, “Don’t be ridiculous, George. Cats don’t kill people, especially not tailless ones.” 

But this morning, as I sipped my coffee and watched out the window at Luna pawing out a curiously rectangular area of the yard, I wondered. Cats are said to have nine lives, but just how many lives do I have left?

 

Find Love (37 of 40)

Find love.

Originally this was worded on the list as fall in love. I'm not sure why I wrote it that way. I wasn't at all interested in falling in love. I guess it felt like a DREAM BIG! idea. At the time, my heart didn't just feel broken; it felt eviscerated. 

It's said "Grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love." And in my pre-divorce life, I loved big. I loved my friends. I loved my church. For a long time, I loved my husband. The post-separation falling away of those friends and faith community was personally one of the most devastating parts of the divorce. In many ways it was a harder loss than the marriage itself, and, honestly, one aspect I did not see coming. The rejection was huge. My grief was bigger. 

At some point I realized that fall in love was too big a goal for me. My capacity for love felt hindered by the residual scar tissue. I needed to start smaller. Changing the wording to Find Love helped to reframe the idea into a more manageable endeavor.

In English, we have one word to describe a multitude of depth and emotion. This one wholly inadequate word encompasses all the possible loves that bring value and worth into our existence. The Greeks expressed love better, utilizing different words for specific aspects of affection. I found a list that helped to me seek out and recognize love in whatever form it presented itself in my life. 

Storge; natural, familial love. 

Storge is the kind of love that just exists, without question or requirement.

The love for my kind and considerate son, who stops playing video games just to come tell me he loves me, who teases me with sick burns and texts me his hopes and ideas for the future. He is the strong and steady current propelling us ahead. 

And the love for my brave, bold and brilliant daughter whose impeccable comedic timing is credited for much of the laughter in our house. She is creative, emotionally complex and a little fiery. She is the moment of excitement when you know anything could happen. 

While this love may be natural, that's not to say that it isn't complex. It's a packaged deal kind of love: the desire to lead by good example and the constant confrontation of my own shortcomings; the fierce need to protect them and the ultimate lack of control; the frustration of groundhog-day minutia and the longing that sends me out of bed at night to check on them just one more time. 

It is the hardest easy love there is. 

Philia; friendship love. 

Philia has come back to me in gracious and unexpected ways. 

In a friend's offer to feed me dinner. The first time it happened, I cried. I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed to feel cared for.

In the common goals I shared with my classmates. They lightened life for me daily in the early months.  

In the miles walked throughout my town with a friend who listened as I shared the same pain again and again.

In the neighbor who ushered my children away on a secret mission to make sure my first single birthday wasn't without celebration.

In the coworkers who have taught me, teased me, and survived the front lines alongside me.

And most definitely in the single mamas I was so fortunate to move next to. Women who know me in the way only one who has walked in your shoes can. Friendship that includes daily check ins, the sharing of rides (and food or wine when needed), an impressively NSFW group text, and laughter or outrage as the situation may require. 

Agape: universal love. 

This is often referred to as God love. Not gonna lie, this one was tricky for me.

Being a Christian defined much of my adult life, but after the divorce, it didn't feel like there was room for me at the table anymore. When all that was left was rubble, it was hard to see the individual components, hard to separate out what was still good and true from what was human and fallible.

What I did see was my sister, who sat with me in my brokenness and said, You don't have to tell me the details. You can keep for yourself what you need to. But I will be here. I will listen and I will witness your grief. I will not leave. I will not judge. I will not call back my love. I will not increase your burden. I will walk alongside you while you do the holy, solitary, and brutal work of rising again. 

I know no better example of agape than her.  

Ludus; playful, uncommitted love. 

In today's terms, this roughly translates to dating apps.

When approaching the dating world in today's environment, one must quickly learn to accept disappointment is an inevitable consequence. The vast majority of profiles will contain at least one of the following immediately no criteria: 

• A man making ducklips.
• Employed at "Self "or "Such-and-Such Dispensary."
• Full-face photos of his children. 
• 6' Height: I like to refer to this as a fisherman's 6, which is realistically 5'10'...at best.

Of the remaining fraction, several will (1) have applied their own nope protocol to you (2) lack the ability to converse past how's your night? (3) have zero spark and/or (4) meet you in person and ghost you immediately after.

But, BUT! Sometimes you get lucky enough to meet interesting and wonderful people who stay in your life despite the fact that you both know it's not a love match. People who compose amazing songs about sourdough. People who introduce you to fried pickles. People who let you drag them on mediocre adventures, watch old movies with you over facetime, and let you hang out with their magnificently fat cat. For that alone, I'd say it's been worth it. 

I've saved the most challenging loves to restore for last:

Philautia: self love, and Eros: romantic, passionate love. 

Philautia is a post all it's own, so I'm not going to address it here. Eros is as follows.

The first time I loved a boy I was three. We went to preschool together. His first name was Scott. I didn't know his last name but we liked to throw tiny rocks into the air together. One time, I threw a high one. We watched, heads tilted up, as the rock descended...directly into my gaping mouth. Before I even knew what hit me, I had swallowed it. From that day on this boy would be known to me as Scott Rock. 

I have no idea what drew me to him, nor to the other 'loves' I would know from the age of three until twenty. One was a shy boy who gave me my first kiss because I orchestrated a game of Truth or Dare in my favor. One was the handsome Senior to my Sophomore, in which my love was unrequited. One was a foolish, immature, and short-lived summer love. One love a secret I kept, even from myself. One love was an artist who created space for me to become someone new. 

While all of these loves had value, in my life I have only truly fallen in love twice. The kind of love where I knew that I knew that I knew that this was the person with whom I was supposed to be. 

One of those loves grew me up, made me a mother, and lasted nearly fifteen years. 

The other an awakening, an all-consuming rapid expansion of love, and an earth-shattering heartbreak. A love that taught me anything that costs everything is too expensive a price to pay.  

Earlier this year, I began dating someone. And to be honest, it's rather terrifying. Partly because that damaged heart of mine is still healing and partly because how do you trust yourself again after losing what you once believed with every part of you was forever? I'm not sure. It's uncharted territory. 

But, regardless of my apprehension, this man loves me. He loves me in action and he loves me in word. And he desires to love me well. 

I don't know when I will be ready to fall in love again, but as this post has shown, there is no doubt that I have already found love in abundance. 

Get in Shape (36 of 40)

Two weeks.

There are two weeks left before I turn 40.

I want to be able to wrap this list up in a tidy bow and say, "Look! I did it! I set all these goals and I completed every one fully!" I want to check the boxes, dust off my hands, and confidently walk away from the finished project. 

Onward and upward…or whatever. 

But the truth is, I'm looking at the remaining items on my list and they all feel kind of heavy and hard to articulate. Everything that is left is work-in-progress material and just because the magic date arrives in two weeks, does not mean that I have fully achieved everything I set out to. I feel conflicted about that. 

Case in point, one year ago, I was as far as I've ever been away from the goal of "getting in shape." The resurgence of the eating disorder had wreaked havoc on me physically and emotionally. I was sitting nearly forty pounds heavier than I had been two years prior. I felt trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of feast or famine. My back hurt in a please-PLEASE-don't-make-me-pick-that-thing-up-off-the-floor kind of way. I’d outgrown most of my clothes and the only thing that seemed to fit was the shame I wore walking around in a body I felt betrayed by. I didn't want to be seen. I avoided looking in the mirror. I felt scared and hopeless.  

I know I'm not alone in this. The way in which women view their bodies and their relationship with food is complicated. For many of us, it is a struggle. I wanted to lose the weight, in fact I was desperate for it, but even more than that, I wanted to stop being at war with myself.

I just had no idea how to begin. 

So I did what anyone does when they don't know the answer...I googled it. My late-night web search put me in touch with Andrew, a highly skilled personal trainer and nutritionist who didn't flinch when I laid it all out there: the eating disorder, the weight gain, the back injury, and the existential overwhelmingness (overwhelmnity? overwhelmnitude?) of life.  

He customized a nutrition plan for me to begin to stabilize the metabolic swings I had been creating for myself. He set up dynamic and rehabilitative workouts focused more on building my core and strengthening my whole body than solely on a specific goal of "losing weight." He even took note of my sheer hatred of burpees and (mostly) doesn't require them of me. He encouraged me at every corner. He told me when my squats sucked and he made me laugh about it. 

And you know what's happened? Over the last year I have...

• Lost and kept off 25 pounds.
• Created a stronger and more stable body.
• Consistently eaten nutrient-dense foods. (The spinach, oh yes, the spinach.)
• Changed my body composition.
• Stretched more regularly.
• Significantly decreased purges.
• Improved my posture. (Andrew would tell you I still have a ways to go here.)
• Learned how to protect my back when that-thing-just-simply-must-come-off-the-floor.
• Not gone on a single fad or crash diet. 
• Practiced being kinder to the reflection in the mirror.
• Finally, finally (!) gotten relief from the constant back pain.

So, am I where I dreamed I would be when I set the goal to "Get in Shape" by forty? 

Eh, no. 

But that doesn't negate all the hard work that I have done to get to where I am now. And honestly, I feel pretty good about this body I have. I have confidence that I will get to the destination, despite the fact that it's not likely to be in the next two weeks.

In the meantime, please enjoy this visual of the progress I've made in the handstand department. The first picture shows where I started, and believe me when I tell you, just getting that far was an effort in and of itself. 

Take Charge of my Financial Landscape (35 of 40)

Have you ever done that experiment where you see how many drops of water can fit on a coin? I must’ve done it with one of the kids at some point. I remember we were pretty amazed to see how much water it held before the dome of liquid burst and sent tiny rivers all over the table.

My life feels like a lot that right now; one stressor after another, always pushing the limits of capacity, just crossing my fingers that this next drop isn’t the one to cause the collapse. I don’t know if it’s being a single parent working full time in healthcare or just the being a single person adulting in Southern California, but on a good day, there seems to only be just enough extra energy/emotional bandwidth/motivation to accomplish one single additional thing beyond the scope of basic survival.

Most of these additional things are still related to keeping life moving, like preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner before 9:30 am so the kids have something to heat up at dinner time while I’m still at work.

Or, exercising/stretching my back so that my work day will be manageable and my mental health gets a bit of a break.

Or, researching a pressing topic that relates to the wellbeing and safety of my kids.

Or, doing the laundry.

Or, foregoing those things to attemp something more enjoyable like a social engagement, writing or working on a goal for this list. This one can be tricky because it comes with nagging all-the-other-things-are-currently-not-being-done guilt, but it is what it is.

So imagine my reaction when I opened a letter this weekend from the State of California Franchise Tax Board that kindly informed me that I owed them over $10,000 which should be paid in full by the following Thursday, this Thursday!

If you imagined a heart-stopping pause in which my brain fell directly out of my ass, you were correct.  

Literally shaking and flushed with sweat, I counted breaths as my friend reasoned to me that it was definitely a mistake, clearly a mistype of some sort and, in any case, disprovable by the information I already have. Those facts, however, did very little to dissuade the rising terror of having the IRS’s bright white interrogation light aimed squarely at this single mama.

I panicked. I cried for awhile and then dissociated by watching Instagram reels until it was time for bed. I woke up this morning, cried some more, and then attempted to tackle the beast first thing. #adultingamIright? 

I called the 800 number during their listed hours of operation, sat through five solid minutes of pre-recordings only to receive an automated reply to call back in an hour.

While I waited, I called the tax preparers, who are definitely getting a one-star yelp review, only to receive an out-of-office notice on the recording. Conveniently, they are gone until Thursday, my Thursday!

So 8am rolls around and I'm finally put in the callback queue for the Tax Board. Cut to forty-five hold-minutes later, and finally...a return call! The dude rambled off his name and ID as fast as an auctioneer, asked me a single question, then barely waited for my answer before rapid-firing a number and instructions my frazzled mind could not possibly understand. 

And then he hung up…before I could even say why I was calling!

I cried again. And this time, I cussed a bit. 

I won’t bore you with the following several hours of the same. damn. thing, but needless to say, by mid-day I wasn't much further along than when I started.

I had stopped crying though so at least there’s that.

You may be wondering, what does this have to do with the 40 by Forty list? So much actually. I had a goal this year to become more financially educated, and while I didn’t expect my post about it to go like this, it does highlight a few things I’ve learned about money.

In the early years of singledom, the idea of suddenly having to be solely responsible for my finances felt overwhelming. It wasn't that I was completely naïve about money, but the last time I had to go it alone, I was barely an adult, living in a $400 a month rental with no one else depending on me. This was next level responsibility without a safety net. I wasn't ready to dive right in. Instead, I regarded my finances like a nebulous elephant in the room and I side-stepped around it as much as possible. 

Last year, once the divorce was truly finalized and all the chips had fallen where they would, I decided to confront the beast. 

Lesson one: know my numbers. This includes all checking, savings, and investment accounts. I listed them all out so I had a complete picture.

Lesson two: develop a working budget. I gathered six months worth of spending info, looked for patterns and input a budget using Mint.com. Then I spent a few months tweaking it and making changes as unanticipated things came up. The best advice I received about effective budgeting is to assign high and low value items. For example, one person may spend $100 on eating out, not remember what they ate and feel physically terrible after. This is a low value item because that money had minimal positive return. A foodie, however, who loves trying new restaurants and eating socially with friends would assign a high value to that $100 restaurant budget because it brings meaningful value into their life.

Lesson three: maximize my savings. Conventional wisdom suggests having at least 6 months of living expenses saved in an easily accessible emergency fund. The good advice I found here was to open a high-yield savings account. I found one with a 0.5% APR so now the money I keep liquid is still making me a little somethin'-somethin' on the side.  

Lesson four: invest. This is definitely where I have the most to learn. I honestly did not realize that investing is a two part process. Setting aside money into a 401k or the like is only the first step. Once the money is in the investment account, you still have to actively invest it into the market in order to grow your wealth. This is the difference between having hundreds of thousands of dollars at retirement and being a multi-millionaire. While I am still learning about stocks and managing my own funds, I decided to enlist the expertise of a financial manager. Besides, I really don't want to spend my singular bonus task each day managing investments. 

Money is still a complex and intimidating subject for me but understanding it bit by bit has helped remove some of the fear. This latest issue with the Tax Board is just another reminder for me to take it one step at a time. The sheer panic I felt last night is all but dissipated. Within the span of writing this entry, I was able to get confirmation that the government had in fact made a mistake and I no longer need to worry about coming up with a small fortune in a matter of days! #winning

Get Passports (34 of 40)

My originally-intended 40 by Forty list item was decidedly more lofty than simply Obtain My Passport. Waaaay back, when the most common type of Corona came in a frosty bottle with a slice of lime, I dreamed a dream of European travel. Actually, it was a dream the kids and I dreamed together. In the early post-separation era when the impending unknown was more unsettling than exciting, our collective imaginations were a lifeline of hope in despair. 

Our original idea was to go to England, to visit Stonehenge and uncover all things Harry Potter. First it was to be as soon as I finish school. Then it became after I get established in a job. And just as soon as that happened, the world caught fire, the borders shut down and life as everyone planned it became something new entirely. With four weeks until 4-0, it's safe to say these three Yanks are not going to make it across the pond in time.

Instead, we're going to keep dreaming, allowing life and imagination to morph that small spark of hope into a richer, more meaningful outcome than we originally planned for ourselves. Ava and I are working on learning French, Cash is working on a convincing argument about exploring Japan, and I am virtually walking Hadrian's Wall, a 90-mile route located near the border of England and Scotland, using the Conqueror App. 

And...we are one step closer to our original dream! Last fall I applied for and got my passport and last weekend, I took the kids to get theirs as well. We have plans, BIG, exciting, life-living plans, for 2022 and for the several years to come. Now if only that darn 'rona would cooperate! 

In the meantime, please enjoy (yet another) embarrassing image of 13-year-old Caitlin's passport photo juxtaposed next to my much less awkward offspring: