 I’m really fortunate today to live a comfortable, middle-class existence. I’ve owned a cute, cozy, two-bedroom bungalow in the Highlands for 10 years.
I have an ancient car that runs OK but isn’t pretty to look at. But, if I need to replace it sometime soon, I could swing the added payments with very little hardship. My business has been steady and successful so far, and I cannot emphasize enough just how much I love being my own boss. Sure, I’ve got some debt, the house is always going to need some work, and I can’t afford to travel the world right this minute. Life ain’t perfect, but the intangibles of peace and serenity make up for any material things I might lack at the moment. Truly, I have everything I need and most everything I want. That wasn’t always the case. I’ve never lived in a cardboard box, but I definitely started at the bottom … in a crappy apartment with a minimum-wage job. When my son, Ethan, was small, we were even on food stamps for a couple of years. I wrote a bit about that time in our lives here.
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 This past weekend, I was honored to be one of the presenters at the Women Who Write conference. My topic was “Blogging … with Purpose.” I don’t know if a single soul got anything useful out of my talk, but no one fell asleep or walked out midway through, so as far as I am concerned, it was a success.
Now, I don’t pretend to be any kind of expert on blogging. I was very up front with the organizers about that little detail, and they still wanted me to impart what I know. This post is intended to be a summary of what I shared. I don’t make a living with this little blog. You may have noticed that I don’t sell any advertising on it. I have no objection to doing that, but I cannot imagine who would want to buy it, and I don’t have the time or inclination to find out. I’ve been blogging once a week for almost two years in this space, as an extension of my professional website. I also ghostblog (lookie there, I just made up a new word!) for several clients. (Side note: my audience this weekend was other writers, most of whom have never blogged, so I focused my presentation on tips that would help them launch their craft in an online forum. Blogging for business is a little bit different animal.)  I have a lot of alcoholics and addicts in my life. The majority of them are what I would call non-practicing, but there are a few still swirling around in the madness.
The ones in recovery all have one thing in common: they have taken responsibility for their actions. Yes, they have a sickness of the mind, but they don’t blame any outside forces for their fate. Once martyrs and victims, they now can recognize the active participation they each played in the progression of their disease and own up to it. And when I say “they,” I am including myself in the bunch. (I may get up on a soapbox here for a sec, so bear with me.) I met up with a friend from high school this past week I had not seen since we graduated. We connected on Facebook a few years ago, and he was in town from Washington, D.C. , visiting family here. Kevin is a really good dude, and I was happy to see him. Understandably though, we spent a good chunk of our conversation over dinner chatting about other high school chums. “Whatever happened to …” and “Did you hear about …?”  I love writing this little blog. I do. It’s a safe forum that allows me to speak my truth. I can share my hopes, dreams and successes; failures, frustrations and fuckups; and random, silly anecdotes about my first-world life.
I am not ashamed of anything I’ve said or done in my lifetime, so there’s no ego involved when I write. I have made peace with all my decisions, and I have no regrets. I’ve been schooled on some amazing lessons I couldn’t have learned without wading through a lot of shit. I hope that sharing some of those lessons will keep others from making the same mistakes. Thanks to 12-step recovery, I’ve also learned that other people’s shit does not stick to me. If people I love make bad choices, that’s on them. I’m not going to waste time agonizing over those choices or being humiliated on their behalf. But, because this blog is public and attached to my professional website, I hesitate to go too far off the chain with intimate details. I’m reticent to post anything too raw or controversial because I don’t want to alienate my clients, family or friends.  Bwock bwock bwock-ock!
I admit it. I can be a big chicken. Now, I don’t think I have any true phobias. Nothing paralyzes me from participating in day-to-day activities. I don’t like spiders, but if one of those little sons of bitches shows up in my house, I have no problem grabbing a wad of Kleenex and smooshing the sucker. I experience dizziness that borders on vertigo at the top of a skyscraper, but that didn’t stop me from visiting the observation decks of the John Hancock Center and the Sears Tower (renamed Willis Tower in 2009) in Chicago with my son while on vacation there 10 years ago. Air travel makes me nauseous, but I just take a happy pill and get on the plane anyway. And I’ve had an irrational fear of dying in a car crash ever since my parents were involved in a drunk driving accident in the late 1970s, but I still get in my car every damn day. And sure, I experience many common, human fears — fear of failure, fear of disappointing others, fear of not being enough, financial fear, etc. — but I push through them. What’s that saying about courage? Being scared shitless and getting the job done anyway? Yeah, that.  I have discovered that, since I celebrated the milestone almost two years ago, 40 truly is the magic age when your body starts waging a Sandinista-style rebellion.
Oblivious to the damage you’re doing to yourself in your youth and all the time-tested literature on the natural effects of aging, you dismiss the warnings of your parents and middle-aged friends, thinking, “I’ll be fine until WAY into my 50s.” And then 40 sneaks up on you like a kitten under the covers at 3 a.m. Forty has TEETH, man. Your skin suddenly says nuh-uh to collagen production and yes to saggy jowls and eye wrinkles. Your stomach starts screaming “Hell to the no!” when you dare to eat anything greasy or (burp) spicy. And your metabolism says, “Fuck you, that tiny piece of carrot cake WILL go straight to your ass if you don’t get up off of it right this minute and kick the shit out of those calories at the gym.” |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
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