The stuff that matters

This week, I'm coming up to an anniversary of sorts.

Last year at this time, my colleagues baked cupcakes for me, and threw me a little party. Then they wished me well, as I headed out the door hoping for new adventures.

I haven't worked since. So the milestone I will be pondering on May 8th will be the last day I worked in one whole year -- a first for me in a relatively successful 40 year career. And what a career it was.

I got to rub shoulders with rock stars, and famous authors, dine with prime ministers and even a king, publish seven magazines, make two feature-length documentaries, write hundreds of stories and columns for major newspapers, and even help build a monument to fallen firefighters.

I can't say I loved all of it. As a single mom, I did a lot of contract work and languished in the not-for-profit publishing ghetto where much of the work was given by people who couldn't stand doing it themselves. 

At the upper range, I made six figures for a while, and at the lower I didn't even make enough to pay taxes, or my Canada Pension. As I look back, I realize it was never about money for me. A lot of the work I did, I did for love or charity. That was the work I loved most of all. It was joyful, rewarding and sometimes pretty tearful.

I took two years off to help my daughter raise her baby, Kennedy, and it made me realize that I had spent much too much time working when my own kids were growing up. Kennedy is now four, and she still misses me, and I miss her. Once in a while, I trip over one of her toys in the garden, and I always smile when I pass by her beautiful photo in my hallway.

I also took a year to help my friend Jennette who died of oral cancer. That was hard, but it was so rewarding to help her transition from this world to the next, to hold her hand or wait with her at the cancer clinic. And I got to be there in the final hours to watch her reaching for the sky as she took her final breath. 

In recent years, I got involved with the murder case of my cousin Ashley Simpson who has been gone four years now. When that journey began on that horrible April day in 2016, I had never met her, or her parents, my cousin John and his wife Cindy whom I first encountered on Facebook. Now, we have a close bond, and I feel as though I know Ashley as well as I know my own daughter, and my cousin's grief has become my grief.

I also discovered blogging 15 years ago, and it has been my mental salvation.

For the first few years, I poured out my ideas and feelings on an unsuspecting public. I made promises, broke a few, hopefully made people laugh a bit, cry a bit.

My reward has been not in dollars but in the near million eyeballs who read this stuff.

Often, I read my posts to my husband Scott and I find myself crying like a baby, or laughing like a maniac at my musings. My brother admits to once in a while visiting this space to read "whatever weirdness you're writing these days".  I consider that a compliment, and so I'll continue visiting you all here, once in a while, not every day, just when I need to. I hope you will keep coming back.

The pandemic made me realize that money is great, but a job is always just a job.

It doesn't make you special or even important, especially after you realize that everybody is dispensable. 

It's not a mission, it's not life-affirming, it's just a bloody job.

I've come to realize that it's not the hours that a person clocks in at the office that matters.

It's the people they love, the people they help, and the people they touch.

So just a word to thank you for listening.

Keep coming back. 

Maybe I'll have something to say.
Meanwhile, enjoy my favourite group!