Obama Wins — Oh Happy Day!
November 5, 2008
This music video sums up the joy I feel over Barack Obama’s election as President of the United States of America. Enjoy the song and savor this historic moment!
Midlife Soulmates
August 3, 2008
Yesterday was the beginning of a new life for Penny and John. One widowed and one divorced, Penny and John have defied the odds and found true love in midlife. I saw it coming.
Penny’s been a family friend for over 30 years. I remember her giving me tips on Lamaze as I waited for the birth of my son who her daughter later babysat for. Penny has been a community activist for years always giving back to the city she adopted as her own. She’s a beautiful person with a generous spirit.
I got to know John much later but now that I look back on it, he and Penny have so much in common. He’s also devoted his professional career to making the community around him a better place. His dedication is admired by all who know him. And his smile lights up the world.
The first time I saw John and Penny together was after we had attended the memorial service last year for a friend who died far too young. My sister and I went to a little cafe for dinner afterwards and while we were sitting there, I saw Penny and John sitting together. What I also saw was a glow about them that made me whisper to my sister — “I think they’re in love.” When I went over to say hello, Penny and John beamed like two teenagers on a first date. I learned later that, in fact, it was one of their first dates.
Imagine my surprise and delight when Penny called recently to invite me to their wedding which took place yesterday in front of a host of family and friends. This picture is midlife soulmates Penny and John at their reception where both my sister and I noted how great it is at this point in life to get together for a happy occasion instead of the all too frequent sad ones.
Are there any other wonderful midlife love stories out there?
Let’s Get Together Soon
May 9, 2008
“Let’s get together soon.” I can’t even remember how many times I’ve said this to family and friends with all good intentions of actually getting together. And then we don’t. Has this ever happened to you?
This week some of those vague promises of “getting together” have turned into wonderful reality. For instance, I spent several days visiting with my cousin who came in from Bermuda and stayed with me. He’s my age and we spent some great time together talking about the trials and tribulations of our respective journeys through midlife. We talked, laughed and gave each other lots of cousin-ly advice. After all the times we promised to get together soon, we finally did.
And today, I had lunch with a new friend, someone I’ve known for years and have gotten to know better over the past year. She’s about to make the major midlife transition of retiring. We talked about the things she wants to do in this next phase of midlife and we compared our lists of 100 things about each other. It was surreal how many things we have in common–both eldest children, same personality type and myriad of other things. We have been promising to get together soon. And what fun we had when we did.
Tomorrow I have to attend a family funeral. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to funerals where I say to family and friends that we should get together on happy occasions not just the sad ones. And we all stand around and agree that we will “get together soon”. And then we don’t.
We used to depend on the our older generation of parents, aunts and uncles to make the fun family gatherings happen. With many of them now gone, it’s up to the midlife cousins to arrange the happy times together. So I commit here in this post to help plan a picnic this summer where several generations of cousins can come together for an event that’s not shrouded in grief. It doesn’t have to be fancy and complicated. Our family picnics never were. It just has to be an opportunity for us to get together soon.
And this time I believe we will.
In Celebration of My 100th Blog Post
April 1, 2008
Last week I did my 100thposting here on Midlife’s A Trip. Although this milestone slipped my mind for a few days, I realized that I should really celebrate the fact that I stuck with my new skill of blogging and didn’t give up putting my thoughts on the written page. But instead of writing something deep and meaningful in honor of this auspicious occasion, I thought it’d be fun to just tell you a few more things about me—how about 100 J
- My favorite holiday is Christmas.
- My birthday is June 8th.
- I am the oldest child of 3 children in my family.
- I tell everyone that my sister is the oldest. Read more
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Karen - Midlife Coach
