l’chaim

Greetings! Those of you who have followed this blog, for various reasons, may have seen the post I did in March 2018 when I edited my regular schedule for the postings on various days of the week. You may also have noticed that my daily posting fell apart this past year due to the irregularities of my life and health. On March 1, 2108 I announced the start of my Sabbatical. With the beginning of 2019 I have determined that sabbatical to be over and as of tomorrow will be starting a new and slightly revised blog schedule.

One change is that on Mondays I will no longer be writing about fitness, but health, which can mean fitness, but touch a lot of other subjects, mostly personal but also linking to whatever level of health I choose to make it.

But the biggest change is going to be on Tuesdays. The day is going to be a review of items of interest I found in blogs and other places on the internet over the past week.

• Sunday: Great Hymns of the Faith — I am working my way through the hymn book of my childhood. I put up the text, and record and mp3 of me playing and singing (sometimes with other family members) the hymn.
• Monday: Health — Discussion of health and fitness topics related to my own personal journey or observations I make about health issues around me.
• Tuesday: The Swift Précis – Bits of Blogs and Items of Note from the Internet.
• Wednesday: Great Hymns of the Faith — Another installment of the series I mentioned on Sunday
• Thursday: A Look Ahead. –– A list of interesting events going on and coming up that I know of and may be involved in.
• Friday: A Blast of the Past — Putting up pictures from the family photo albums, with reflections on them and my file.
• Saturday: Reflections — The open mic day to comment on any topic I choose to, from any field. A combination editorial/essay/apologietics piece.

But today, of course, is Saturday, which makes it a reflection day. The past year was to be a sabbatical between one job and another, between one career and another. But by now I have decided I have had enough of careers. What I have wanted is a life. Careers have blocked my life, have segmented me into ways that others want things.

This past year has not gone precisely the way I would have chosen. There are a lot of things I would rather had not happened. Yet I am glad that I had this past year, to actually have a life.

There have been struggles getting my two offspring launched into their lives, and I hope they find lives, and not careers. There was the time I was dangerously close to making the same mistake, in seeing a workplace as a career/life, but Worlds of Fun quickly disabused my mistaking them for a family or a life — while I enjoyed my experience there overall, Shelby that one day made it very clear to me that Worlds of Fun is just a job. One just has to buck it up and do what one needs to. I hated what she did that day and thank her for it.

So I am no longer searching for a career. I will work, and have jobs, but the need to have a long-term job is no longer of importance to me. Having a life is.

2018 was also the year I almost died. People didn’t take me seriously when I said that, and I don’t think they do even now. I keep getting asked if I am alright. The answer is NO, I am not alright. I am still having issues that the medical profession will not take seriously, and keeps deflecting into other areas instead of paying attention to the things I need to tell them. I am not even sure that my family always takes me seriously in the times and ways that I insist are needed. But that, ultimately, is life. You aren’t taken seriously unless you fit within the framework of what people expect.

Well, I am not in the framework of what people expect, and I am going to continue to not be in that framework, and people are going to continue to not take me seriously.

And I am going to continue to have a life, instead of a career, instead of a straight jacket.

l’chaim