I’ve been trying to motivate myself to write for the last two weeks.  Writing, normally, is therapy for me so I’ve been surprised at the difficulty.  Lord knows I could use some therapy these days!  I’m starting this essay on Friday, knowing my posting deadline is Sunday.  Nothing like a self-imposed deadline to get you started!  I just haven’t felt like writing about leadership topics.  Rather, it is hard to make these topics more humorous and based on the response to my last two essays y’all want to laugh, not think.  Wait.  That didn’t come out right.  My clearly intelligent and discriminating readership would prefer to laugh while they think.  So, instead of delving into a single topic, today I am going to share with you a number of observations I have made about myself and the world over the last few weeks and how I might in the future weave some of these into essays of their own.

Maybe I shouldn’t have gone off of Prozac  Let’s start strong!  Like many a Woman of a Certain Age, I had some difficult times with inhuman hormonal swings several years ago and at the insistence of my doctor (“Don’t be afraid of chemistry, Sherri.”) went on Prozac.  I stopped a couple of years ago when various internal chemicals and my life evened out.  My coping energy has generally been fairly strong as of late.  These past few weeks, however, anxiety has come roaring back.  As usual, it has expressed itself by keeping me from sleeping which, in turn, messes with other rather important bodily functions leaving me tired, cranky, lazy, and bloated.  This state is different from my usual tired, cranky, lazy and bloated condition by the addition of feeling both helpless and angry.  I am a joy to be around.  Why am I feeling helpless and angry?  Read on.

Hair Salons Should be Essential Businesses  It is the little things.  I remember when I lost power for four days after Super Storm Sandy.  Electricity is something you really take for granted until you don’t have it.  Those were four miserable days.  Thank goodness for a fireplace and two very warm cats.  When the power came back on, I channeled Scarlet O’Hara yelling, “With Gd as my witness!  I will never take Electricity for granted again!”  I am replaying that emotion now with respect to my hair salon.  It has been 43,200 minutes since I’ve been to the salon.  Not that I’m counting.  It is not, as you might guess, about hair color.  I am one of those lucky few (thanks, Mom and Dad) who is graying late and in a nice salt-and-pepper way, so I don’t color.  No, it’s the Waxing Room of Torture that I miss.  I have taken to plucking hairs that should never have to be removed one at a time.  The concept makes Trish literally gag, so I can’t even tell her about it.  I’m sure she’s gagging editing this paragraph.  I have written to the CIA, explaining in detail how they can now do away with water boarding and just use strategic plucking.  Although I’m guessing this is prohibited by the Geneva Convention, too.

I Have a Righteous Streak a Mile Long  “Really?” says everyone who’s ever known me, rolling their eyes.  “I’ve never noticed.”  OK, but I come by it honestly and I’m clearly not alone.  We are all self-isolating.  And we are doing it for a rather altruistic reason:  in most cases, it’s not so much about us getting COVID-19 ourselves, but making sure that we break the chain of contagion thus keeping our health care system from totally crashing.  Yes, most people have very manageable symptoms.  But this virus is contagious enough and enough people are asymptomatic long enough that without us all staying home, this thing would pass through the country/world like wild fire.  Even the relatively small percentage of people that have a serious time with this illness would be enough people to totally overwhelm hospitals.  Think about that: we are staying home so that people we don’t know won’t die.  That is incredibly selfless and community minded.  And American culture is diametrically opposed to those two characteristics.  But we DO believe in fairness!  That happens to express itself as “If I am going to stay home 99% of the time and wear an uncomfortable face mask when I do go out, then I am going to judge like hell the people that DON’T do that!”  This is partly why lines at gun stores have been a mile long.  This and the fact that Pennsylvania inexplicably closed the liquor stores. If there ever was an essential business!  Anarchy is just one bad day away.  Thank goodness the sun is out today.  “The Individual vs. the Community” will undoubtedly become an essay in the future.

The Average Person Does Not Understand the Scientific Process  I have previously indicated that I would like to write a series of essays entitled “Everything I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned in Freshman Chemistry” and an explanation of the Scientific Process will be a key part of that.  Let me give an example: Having a gut instinct about the efficacy of a drug combination to fight COVID 19, based on a few anecdotal cases, does not replace a well-designed study.  Why not just try it?  What do you have to lose?  Remember thalidomide?  That’s a drug that was found, anecdotally, to reduce nausea in pregnant women.  It was then prescribed widely for this problem, until they realized that a high percentage of babies born to women taking this drug had horrific birth defects.  This is also why I can’t stand “sound bite” journalism.  It is very easy to find isolated examples to prove whatever point you want to make.  A well-designed study that proves cause and effect is critical. And don’t get me started on people who read one article, written for non-scientists, and are now self-proclaimed scientific experts.  Stay in your lane.

Speaking of Correlation vs. Causation  Did you know that there is a strong correlation between number of shark attacks and people eating ice cream?  Well, clearly then, people should stop eating ice cream if we want to prevent shark attacks! (Actually, they are both correlated with warm weather and people taking a swim in the ocean.)  Check out this one:

Clearly Scripps needs to be very careful of the words they choose in the final round!  Just because two events or actions are correlated doesn’t mean that one caused the other.  Just because a couple of people took a particular drug and recovered from COVID 19 doesn’t mean that the drug caused the recovery.  This relationship is oh so important in all aspects of our lives!  (Fans of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing already know this maxim.)  Expect this to show up again.  And remember, if something seems simple or obvious, it just means you don’t know enough about it.  See also: self-proclaimed scientific experts, above.

The Center is Relative  There is so much more about basic scientific principles applied to life that I want to explore.  The Law of Unintended Consequences.  The Importance of Significant Digits.  The Dose Makes the Poison.  But I will touch on just one more here:  The Theory of Relativity.  While we are all trying hard, kind of, to not politicize this pandemic there sure seems to be a lot of complaining tied to political party.  What I find interesting is that almost everyone considers themselves Centrist in their thinking.  Most people can easily find others who are both to the right and left of their own position on any given topic.  As such, by definition, they are “centrist”.  (“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right and here I am: stuck in the middle with you.” Bragging rights to the first person who identifies those lyrics!)  And, your own ideas seem so eminently reasonable to you that they MUST be centrist and anyone who disagrees is either an idiot or a maniac. (Who gets THAT reference?  Clue: comic from, um, the 80’s?)  Just chill, people.  The center moves around a lot.  It is relative to where the majority is at any given time in history.  No one ideology has all the right answers.  And in complicated situations like what we are wrestling with today, there IS no one right answer.  There are just different pathways with different consequences.  We are all right and we are all wrong.  “Balance” is another topic I’m sure I will dive into.  We don’t need to open up the whole country at once; nor do we need to stay in 100% quarantine until 2025.

Which brings me to my final thoughts.  Last night I had a Zoom happy hour with my college friends (the famous crew from Miami).  We were all talking about hitting a “pandemic wall”.  We’re tired of the constant stress of the unknown and uncertainty.  I will leave you with a thought from my friend, Jackie, who said “learn to relax into it.”  So perfect!  Control what you can control.  Breathe and relax into the rest.  And wear a damn face mask when you go out!

Be safe out there.

[Author’s Disclaimer:  Any comments by my editor are hers and hers alone, unedited by me. 😉 ]

When I first began blogging, I shared my thinking around the five steps involved in transitioning to retirement.  You can check out that critically acclaimed three part series here, here and here.  Ever the scientist, I have continued my work in this area.  This research, which involved overhearing at least one conversation and tirelessly scanning through Facebook, has found, amazingly, that those five steps apply equally well to transitioning to Self Isolation.  To do my part in being of service to others during these difficult times, I share below these five steps to ease your mental strain as we move into April 2020—sure to be a month in which we will need some humor.

As with the Five Steps of Transitioning to Retirement, you are required to move, in order, through each of the Five Steps to Accepting Self Isolation.  Residence time in each stage will be different depending upon your particular situation and you might recycle here and there as stressors change, but you WILL go through each of these stages in turn. 

Step One: Detox  Detox in Self Isolation is not wholly different from detox in retirement in that you are for the most part separating yourself from your work environment.  The physical difference causes all but your limbic system to shut down and I’m sure that if I had access to a functional MRI, knew how to use it and interpret the scans, and was able to get within six feet of a willing volunteer, I could prove that.  Suffice it to say that I’ve seen enough evidence to support this theory:  not waking up until 8:00 or later; extensive savoring of morning coffee; pajama bottoms and slippers never coming off (please rotate pairs and do some laundry); and, high activation barriers to really engaging in work.  Depending on your work situation, number and age of children, and access to various streaming services, you will spend different amounts of time in this stage.  As with retirement, though, allow yourself to sit and drool a little while.  It’s good for you.

Step Two: Endless Vacation  During Self Isolation, this stage takes the form of Home Work Projects.  We are all, apparently, incredibly industrious elves just waiting for the opportunity (meaning “time”) to tackle a range of organizational and home improvement projects.  It has not been desire that has stopped us, no!  We have just been pulled away from home too much.  But, now!  Now we can take our commute time, shopping time, socializing time, exercising time and focus it all on the hall closet!  How’s that working out for you?  Yeah, unlike during the transition to retirement, this stage is often really short.  It doesn’t take long to figure out that time was indeed NOT the barrier to cleaning out that closet. And that’s okay. To continue to avoid these tasks, move on quickly to Step Three.

Step Three: What Day Is It?  This is the toughest stage, both in transitioning to retirement and to Self Isolation.  Even though I’ve been retired for coming on four years now (wow!), I had built enough structure into my days to at least remember to put the trash cans out on the right night.  But now, all the days seem to run together.  No matter the day, there are press conferences on TV on a continuous stream.  My workouts are down in the basement and frighteningly similar (meaning “not very taxing”), which is why I prefer the YMCA.  I had gotten in the habit of putting on real clothes every day; now I’m back into continuous sweat pants.  Thank goodness for the discipline of the Weight Watchers eating plan or I’d be in serious trouble.

The third stage, when you are feeling lost, is the one I believe most of us are struggling through right now.  It’s hard to concentrate even though there is a lack of quality distractions.  Underneath it all is the nagging uncertainty of how long this will last and how bad this pandemic will get.  Everything starts to get on your nerves and, yes, the mail truck is a daily bright spot.  I’m interested to see how history treats this time period.  In the meantime, know you are not alone in your frustrations and struggles. 

Remember, though, the reason we are doing this: it’s about trying to lower the load on our healthcare system by reducing the spread of this crazy contagious virus.  We are actually doing something for the good of the community ahead of what we sometimes feel would be better for ourselves.  Pat yourself on the back for that!  Go ahead and have some ice cream.  Or a drink.  Or an ice cream drink.  Or two.

Step Four: Catharsis  I’ve struggled over whether or not “catharsis” is the right word to use for this stage.  The definition of “catharsis” is “elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression”.  Maybe something around a “Eureka” moment is more what I was after.  But as I look at that definition, I think I had it right all along.  Once we bring the nagging discomfort to the surface and put some verbiage to it, we can move on to that Eureka moment.  That’s when you find the right pattern to your daily life under Self Isolation.  There’s a little work, a little play, a little teeny tiny bit of productive activity, a little learning, a little fun.  You get a beat to it all.

Step Five:  A New Normal  Normal, but temporary nonetheless.  Here are some of my suggestions for getting to this stage.  First, make sure you get a good belly laugh each day.  If you pee a little bit, all the better.  Second, go outside and breathe a while.  Take a walk around the neighborhood.  Hey, you have a great excuse to cross the street and avoid the neighbors you don’t want to see.  “Social distancing,” you yell as you smile and wave from a distance.  Enjoy it while you can.  Finally, set little daily goals.  Begin, please, with “bathe”.  Work up to that hall closet.  You might just find a few new habits that you’ll want to keep once we’re through this whole thing.

[Editor’s Note:  Okay, we’ve already established that Sherri is the “smart” one in this couple, uh, and also the “nice” one.  But here, folks, is the real poop on how to survive “Social Isolation”.

Step One:  Detox  Contrary to the title, you should be imbibing in your “drug” of choice to get through this—chocolate, fried foods, wine.  Or chocolate covered French fries dipped in merlot.  Whatever.  JUST DO IT (thanks, Nike…)

Step Two: Endless Vacation  I don’t know how you feel, but I’ve had more fun in some Third World countries I’ve visited than I have in this last month!  Hell, even my African dysentery incident seems like a picnic to March 2020.  But I digress….  My home improvement projects have included painting every room in the house.  Not sure any of them needed it, but the disarray drives Sherri into a different room—and we both pass out by 7:00 pm from the fumes.  Try it.

Step Three:  What Day Is It?  Only 1 day counts—Sunday, for CBS Sunday Morning and an afternoon of Sunday paper reading/puzzles.  The New York Times Crossword has kept our marriage together. Not because we do it together, but rather because this is the only way I feel adequate and convince myself I am not intellectually stultifying Sherri (yes, getting back into therapy is on my post-COVID list).

Step Four:  Catharsis  This is when the wine and paint buzz hits.

Step Five:  New Normal  Don’t know WTF this will look like but I’m sure glad I have a life partner that can laugh (and wet her pants) with me!

Stay Safe Everyone!  Trish, the dumber, meaner Editor]

The other night, as Trish and I were watching the evening news, our State’s Governor was shown imploring people to stay home as much as possible to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.  I know that staying home is a challenge for a lot of people, especially if you have young kids who should be in school or work at a job that is not amenable to working from home.  However, at this pronouncement, Trish and I looked at each other and suppressed (sort of) wry smiles.  Telling two introverts to stay home is not exactly a hardship.  Herewith, a little lighter side of the impact of the coronavirus.  We could all use a bit of a laugh right now.

On Sharing the Same Space  Our house is not huge but it’s big enough.  Big enough for us to be in totally different parts of the house and not see each other all day.  Except we don’t do that.  For some reason, the four of us (me, Trish, the two cats) always seem to end up in the same 10 square feet and we’re mostly ok with that.  It’s like the Anti-Second Law of Thermodynamics.  Take this morning, for instance.  Since we all ended up in the upstairs bathroom brushing our teeth together (the cats weren’t brushing; just assisting), we all decided to go into the basement and get in a workout.  The Beloved YMCA is closed, so we had to figure out our own thing.  Trish was on her recumbent bike.  I was on the treadmill.  Beau was on the yoga mat.  Bridget was losing her favorite Blue Ball behind some boxes.  Then Trish was lifting some weights, I was doing abs on the yoga mat, Beau was still on the yoga mat, Bridget was whining and furiously looking for her Blue Ball.  Did we need to be in that small space together?  No.  Did we get in each other’s way? Yes.  Were we ok with that?  Yes.  Did I find Bridget’s Blue Ball? Yes.  Did she lose it again in 2 minutes? Yes.

On Going to the Grocery Store  About the only outing we seem to be taking is to get fresh food.  I, fortunately, had gone to Costco and bought toilet paper because we actually needed it the week before the COVID hit the fan, so our focus is actually food.  We sometimes go together but I mostly do the grocery shopping because I enjoy it.  We have been on Weight Watchers, with gratifying success, since the start of the year so we shop mostly for produce, beans and spices.  I went yesterday for the weeks’ needs.   We were traumatized shopping in the “corona frenzy” last Friday morning, so I was a bit anxious.  The lot was not crowded, nor was the store, as we all sized each other up from a safe distance.  While there were signs of an on-going riot in the paper goods and spaghetti sauce aisles, the produce section continued to be a fine place to practice Social Distancing.  I strolled to the lettuce area, dismayed to see nearly empty racks of bagged greens.  Then I heard a voice around the corner say, “I got all the bags of spinach.”  I followed the voice to see a woman and her teenaged son reviewing their prize of about a half dozen bags of spinach.  I asked, “Did you take ALL the spinach?  Could I have just one bag?”  She didn’t want to give me one, I could tell, but she also couldn’t say no.  I thanked her and rolled off to get peppers and zucchini.  I didn’t even want spinach.  It was just the principle.  I saw her later when I was looking for ricotta and she was grabbing the last package of sliced cheddar.  I looked at her.  She asked if I wanted the bag of cheese.  I said no, but thank you.  Maybe I should have taken it.

On Going Stir Crazy  While I have established that we are both (all four of us?) Introverts Who are Happy to Stay Home, when you are somewhat REQUIRED to stay home it’s a bit different.  The one regular activity that we miss like crazy is our almost daily treks to the local YMCA.  It’s not just the exercise, although Trish misses her water aerobics as much as I miss my spin classes.  It’s the community of friends we miss, as well as the change of scenery.  After a morning at the Y, spending the afternoon reading and writing was a luscious indulgence.  Burn a little incense, make a cup of tea and I was in heaven.  Now, after an hour of reading (if that), I get nudgy.  To deal, we are taking walks around the neighborhood (with appropriate Social Distancing when we come across other people).  We had a neighborhood conversation yesterday with no one leaving the end of their driveways, and just yelling a bit to check in with each other.  Stuff is getting organized, although it still requires a little push for me to act.  But there is ONE thing that gets us excited every day.  The sound of the mail truck is like hearing the intoxicating melody of an ice cream truck.  “The MAIL!” one of us will exclaim, and we wait at the window until the truck is a few doors past ours to not look too anxious.  I create a distraction by “accidentally” kicking one of the cat bowls so Trish will clean it up (she’s obsessive about that) and I run outside.  It’s not like anything good ever comes in the mail anymore; nor are we forbidden to go outside and breath fresh air.  It’s just….good lord, I don’t even know WHAT it is!  But Sunday’s are hell.

On Getting on each Other’s Nerves  Lest you think our lives as near shut ins are all rainbows and unicorns, there are times when I have to go north and she needs to go south.  Little things start to rub.  I, for instance, eat too quickly and then get the hiccups.  I also talk back to the TV, particularly Pharma commercials and (increasingly) press conferences.  Trish has still not grasped the concept of recycling and I’m constantly fishing things out of the garbage to rinse and put in the bin.  Additionally, the logic this woman uses (or doesn’t) when it comes to loading a dishwasher is beyond me.  Who puts a small bowl in the middle of the empty bottom rack?  I also find it annoying that she so quickly came up with a list of things I do that annoy her.  Seriously, though, we do get on each other’s nerves at times which is not unexpected in a situation with the constant underlying stress of uncertainty.  In fact, I recently read that as the quarantine restrictions are being lifted in China that divorce filings are sky rocketing!  Yes, this is a time when we must all give each other a bit of grace!

What an amazing time this is for us all!  I cannot think of another instance when the entire world was dealing with the same crisis all at the same time.  This is different from being aware of a crisis.  The world responds when there is a hurricane somewhere, or we send all kinds of thoughts and prayers when there is some tragedy.  But those crises are all localized, even if the awareness is global.  This time, though, the crisis itself is global and we are connected enough to see it all unfold in real time.  We are seeing more and more instances of how this crisis is bringing out our collective humanity, which is heartening.  I, for one, have been vociferously thanking everyone working at the grocery stores when I go to shop.  Facebook is filled with things like free concerts from musicians, virtual art shows, famous actors reading books to kids, and all kinds of nice stuff—instead of all that nasty crap that had filled my News Feed so much that I was spending virtually no time on the app.  Finally, Facebook is doing again what it says it was built for—bringing people together.  My Mom’s Rabbi said in his video sermon this week that maybe this virus can be seen as the Universe sending us all a “timeout”.  Let’s use it for that.  We don’t need all the chaos and messed up priorities.  We need the humanity.  Please remember that when the shelter-in-place orders are lifted.  Trish and I put in our wedding vows that we would make sure we gave each other a good belly laugh every day.  It’s more important now than ever.

I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships lately.  What spurred me to write this essay is a particular type of relationship.  You know those people.  You smile when you think about them.  You can go months or years without seeing or talking, yet as soon as you are together again you pick up right where you left off; people you love unconditionally, yet you will not let them get away with any bullshit.

But first, a little of my general musing about relationships.  I’m talking all kinds of relationships:  family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances.  How people interact with each other has always fascinated me—remember, I’m an amateur social scientist.  In the workplace, it was all about influence: how can I convince someone to do what I would like them to do, be that a customer buying what my company is selling or another employee “buying” what I am trying to “sell” them about a project or other initiative.  In my personal life, it has often been around the question of how “out” do I really need to be: does the cashier at the grocery store really need to know that Trish is my wife?  Do I care that she or he may assume something totally different about who I am?  With family and friends, I am often thinking about communication.  I’ve written before about my Theory of the Half Life of Effective Communication and On Resolving Conflict.

One of the companies that I worked for was a highly distributed, global organization, with 30,000+ employees around the globe but rarely more than 200 in the same location (most had staffs of less than 50). The development of effective relationships and communication norms was critical for these micro universes.  I wrote a “white paper” about this topic for a corporate Executive Leadership Program.  It went over like a lead balloon, but I still like the premise.  I asked people to think about relationships (and this holds for the work environment as well as your personal life) as a series of concentric circles—hence the visual that I posted with this essay. 

In your personal life, that innermost circle is a very few people.  Your spouse, children, maybe siblings, maybe parents and a few cousins.  If you are lucky like me, your BFF is in that circle. These are the people that are just IN your life daily and always at the front of your mind.  You know what they are doing and they know what you are doing—almost everything.

In that second circle, you have your posse.  The friends (and family members) that you generally interact with regularly.  Successive circles outward include acquaintances that you run into every now and then.  You usually remember their names and faces.  Farther out are those transactional relationships—cashiers, service people, the person you sit next to on a transnational flight.  How you communicate with people in those circle differs, as does the work you must put into developing communication norms.

What I want to talk about, though, is a special category in that second circle: those people who aren’t necessarily in your everyday life, but with whom you have a deep bond.  This is a bond that time and life changes don’t affect; a bond that may form under a particular circumstance but that grows past that initial basis.  That’s the group of friends I just spent 4 days with in Miami Beach.

We are a circle of seven women who went through school together at Goucher College, Class of 1984.  The group is not all equal in “closeness”.  Some subgroupings have stayed deeply involved in each other’s lives continuously since graduation.  Some are very close with one or two people yet less close with others.  The closeness has ebbed and flowed over the years.  And some, like me, dropped out of sight for a good part of the 35 years since graduation while I was trying to figure out my own life.  That took about all the energy I had and, since I really hate talking on the phone, I fell out of touch with them.  (Social media, the perfect work around for phone-phobes like me, is a comparatively recent development.)  However, we ALL always came back for the 5 year interval reunions and we slid right back into the easy rapport which was always there.  At our 35 year reunion last year, we decided to make our own “off” year reunion—hello, South Beach in February! 

The hotel staff were increasingly amused as an ever-larger “Greeting Committee” would wander down to the lobby as each person arrived.  Rooming arrangements were negotiated prior through some sort of organic process.  I, one of the most introverted in the group, roomed with the most extroverted in the group.  It worked because we have a strong basis of mutual love and respect.  And that underpinned being able to say whatever we needed to say to each other.  I could say, “Stop talking.  I want to go to sleep.”  And she could say, “No, you’re not going to sleep yet.”  (I can hear the gasps of those who know me after reading that line!)

That balance extended to the wider group.  Imagine trying to coordinate four days of activities, meals, whatever with six of your friends.  What made it work was the comfort level of knowing that no one was going to dominate, that no one was going to be voiceless, that if anyone tried to push something that the consensus was uncomfortable with that they would be called on it (mostly).  These are the kind of people who won’t hesitate to tell you there is spinach in your teeth or a booger hanging out of your nose.  We split each check evenly seven ways.  If I got an expensive entree one meal, they knew it would balance out another time.  If some drank water and others had three drinks, we didn’t care.  We trusted each other and wanted each other to have a good time.  This sort of deep caring is rare. 

There were beach groups and pool groups; power walkers and strollers; chatter and companionable silence times.  The last night we were all together, we took over the pool bar for a rather loud game of Farkle.  It’s a dice game that involves equal parts strategy and accounting, and us “Goucher Women of Promise” quickly picked it up.  True to form, we kept helpfully adding up everyone’s score for them each roll.  It just worked and was so comfortable!  I think what I liked the most is that while we did a little reminiscing about our college years, 95% of the conversation was about our lives since then.  Our years at Goucher, struggling through classes together and learning to be adults, formed the basis of our friendship.  But it has been what we have navigated through in the decades since, and how we have shared it and grown with it that have formed the ties that bind us.  You know, I don’t even remember ever officially coming out to this group.  I don’t think I came out to anyone while we were in school.  But they all knew and that part of my life just fit into the rest of our relationship.  This is the ONLY group with which that process has happened!

We have continued the group text that started as we prepared to travel down to Miami, sharing more of our daily lives with the group.  We have penciled in a week for next year to get together again.  Shout out to Goucher, since 6 of the 7 of us have retired (or essentially so) by 57 years of age, so this is more do-able for us now.  Trish and I are talking about some travel that will include stops to see some of the group.  (This was a spouse-less trip, so Trish missed out.)  Realistically, I know life will get in the way a bit and this tight communication will fade.  But I also know that when we do get together again, hopefully next year, we’ll pick up right where we left off, Farkle and all.  I treasure these friendships and these women.  I hope you all are lucky enough to have friends like this in your lives.

The day this essay posts will mark my one year blogiversary—one year since I hit Publish and started this blog.  This milestone has of course prompted much Fond Reminiscing and Deep Thoughts about the blog and why I write.  You, Dear Reader, now get to share in some of those musings.  Patience!  Next time we’ll get back into essays on the various bon mots floating around in my head.

As I look back over this first year, I must admit that I am quite pleased.  I have kept to my every-two-weeks posting schedule, save for the last Sunday of the year when I was painfully ill.  (I told myself everyone was too busy to read then anyway.)  I have a faithful stable of 50 or so subscribers, some of whom probably actually read the blog each week (mostly family members, my BFF and spouse), and an additional 80-100 people that access the essay in the few days after I post on Facebook and LinkedIn about a new entry.  My page views have crept up north of 3300 (which I do check excessively the couple of days after I post).  I have reconnected with several friends and former colleagues through the blog which has been a very happy by-product of the writing.  And every now and then, someone tells me that I made a difference.  All of this is to say that I am far from a viral sensation, of which I am quite happy. I know almost all of my subscribers.  A few unknowns have either undecipherable email addresses or came from referrals, which pleases me greatly.  A small but loyal readership is usually kind.  Almost all the comments I get are positive and supportive.  Since I have a very fragile ego, I like it that way.

While I do love you all very much, Dear Readers, I must admit that I don’t really write for you.  I write for me.  You see, I have always wanted to write (just like about 50% of the population and about 90% of middle age females).  I kept journals almost continuously until my 20’s and on and off since then.  I would get compliments on work memos.  Work memos!  Who gets suggestions that you should be a writer based on work memos?  Each compliment was filed away for later.  “I’ll write later,” I would tell my younger self.  “When I can devote time to it.”  Truth is, it wasn’t about time.  It was about fear.  I knew I could express myself well and a few people made some passing positive comments, but could I really write?  I kept telling people I wanted to write yet used busy-ness as my excuse.

It also was about the question of what to write.  Since we have well established by now that I have the attention span of gnat, the idea of writing The Great American Novel made me laugh.  We have also established that I am lazy and a procrastinator, so the idea of me creating a lengthy treatise with well researched material is also quite the stretch.  Through my reading-in-retirement, I found that I am a fan of the essay—something in the neighborhood of 1000-5000 words, around a succinct topic, often with a specific lesson or message to deliver.  THAT I could do!  And in terms of content, well, I laid that out in the title essay to my blog.  Once you’ve done a certain amount of living, learning, and mistake-ing, there is plenty to write about.

All that said, I actually DO write for you, otherwise why create a blog?  I am under no illusion that I am creating new knowledge or philosophy or thinking with my essays.  In fact, I’d be very surprised if anyone told me that they learned something completely new in what I’ve written.  You all know these things, these life lessons about how you evolve as a person.  However, we all need a bit of reminding now and then, don’t we?  And, we could also use a little reminding that we are not alone in feeling that we procrastinate too much, or judge people too quickly, or make a ton of unarticulated assumptions every day.  I have learned the hard way to give myself a little grace and one of the goals for this blog is to give you the permission to give yourself a little grace, too.

I’ve written before on the specific series of events that led me to start the blog.  There are two people in particular, though, that I must thank for their support and encouragement.  The first is Jill Harris Helmer, whom many of you know.  Jill is a friend and a colleague from my days at Air Products.  We always had an easy connection (although most people develop an easy connection with Jill) and she is someone I have always admired.  Jill has had her own blog for quite some time, A Little Bit of Everything, and I encourage you all to check it out.  She writes honestly, joyfully and sometimes painfully about life in a way which anyone can connect.  She is my blogger role model. 

When I finally started to screw up the courage to start a blog, I asked Jill if I could buy her lunch and discuss blogging.  We talked about the mechanics of setting up a page, which have changed a lot in the decade since she started her blog.  We talked about content and length; about comments and trolls; about the basic “why” of having a blog.  But more than anything, she provided encouragement to DO IT (not dissimilar to how she coached me during our Air Products days).  The public accountability of having made this project known to Jill is what really gave me the push to make it happen.  Full disclosure: to this day, Jill, anytime you like or comment on an essay it feels like when you get kudos from your hero. (Blush)

The other person I must thank, of course, is my wife, Trish.  Trish, it must be known, is an exceptional writer herself.  She has not only encouraged me every step of the way but has been my editor-in-chief.  For each essay, she walks that line of “must put out well written and understandable material” on the one side and “jeez, she doesn’t take constructive criticism well, does she?” on the other.  The first few essays required a LOT of iteration.  I never realized how often my tenses wandered all throughout recorded time!  She has been careful to not necessarily argue content, but to make sure my message got through.  She still encourages me to inject more humor (I’m trying!).  Lately, her edits have gotten sparse.  I’m not sure if my writing is getting better or if she’s tiring of the process.  She promises it’s the former and I will choose to believe that.

So here we are! Ready to start Year 2!  How long will I keep doing this?  I don’t know.  I guess until I feel like I don’t have anything more to say (just like when I knew it was time to stop therapy).  Unlike my various rounds of therapy, though, I think I’ll always have something to say.  And that’s because you and life inspire me every day.  Thanks for hanging in there with me during this startup phase.  I can’t tell you how honored I am every time you choose to invest your time to read my thoughts.  My desire to make it worth your while is what keeps me writing!

There are many times in our lives when we figuratively and emotionally have no voice.  These can be difficult times, frustrating and angering.  There is much I have to say on that topic and, oh, I will!  However, this essay is not about those times.  This one is about literally and physically having no voice, which happened to me at the end of the year.  While also frustrating and angering at times, I also found it somewhat freeing! 

Scene I:  it’s Monday afternoon of Christmas Eve Eve, the night our neighbors throw their annual holiday party.  I went to spin class in the morning and told Trish afterwards, “I think I need a nap.  And my eyeballs are sweating.”  The former statement is almost a daily affirmation in this household and caused no concern.  That latter, however, is my bodily signal that I’m getting a cold and is never a good sign.  Trish raised her eyebrows, no doubt thinking about the upcoming responsibility of dealing with a sick Sherri.  I get a bit whiney when I’m sick.  And moody.  I alternately cry and yell.  I prefer to be alone and most people prefer to leave me alone when I get this way.

I soldiered through the party and truly had a nice time.  We are lucky to live in a close neighborhood and enjoy each other’s company.  It was loud, though, and I felt like I strained my voice.  I complained as much the next morning and decided to cancel plans with my BFF.  I was headed to Atlanta the day after Christmas, for my Mom’s birthday, and I needed to nip this cold in the bud.

Christmas Day with the in-laws was another solid good time.  I had a glass of water in my hand the whole day and probably drank a gallon and a half of water.  My throat hurt.  I talked minimally.  I allowed no kissing and hugging (which no one minded once they knew my throat hurt).  “Eh,” I thought.  “A little Advil Cold and Flu, NyQuil at night and I’ll be fine.  This will pass quickly.  I’m pretty good at fighting off these viruses.”  I checked in for my flight the next day.

Scene II:  The dawn broke on Thursday and I felt like total crap.  I didn’t want to disappoint my Mom on her birthday (nor kick the can down the road on the To-Do list she had for me) and I knew I wouldn’t be coming home again until early April, so off to the airport we went.  I had a purse full of meds and pockets full of tissues and cough drops.  The person next to me on the flight gave me one of those, “Oh, gee, thanks” looks as I blew my nose and coughed for the umpteenth time in 3 minutes.  I took solace in the fact that I was not the only one on the plane that clearly should have stayed home.  Tis the season.

The Uber dropped me at my sister’s condo about one minute before she got home.  I was standing there dazed, looking at the bed in the guest room when she came in.  I pushed back on a hug and after a few minutes of catching up said, “I really just need to lie down.”  Two hours later I staggered out of the bedroom.  This was not good.  Mom was duly warned via text.

Scene III:  Knowing that I do way better in the morning hours when I am sick, I arrived at my Mom’s apartment in her retirement community by 9:30 the next morning.  We blasted through the electronics To-Do list, which involved the requisite list of iPad/iPhone/printer/FireStick/Soundbar questions (I can usually address half of them; I appreciate my Mom’s faith in my electronic prowess but my knowledge does not go much further than “turn it off and back on again”).  Off we went to Target to switch her phone to Consumer Cellular, then to a local hospital for compression stockings.  She blessedly suggested I just drop her off instead of taking her out to lunch.  I’m sure it was a mixture of concern for me and concern for herself.  Neither of us wanted her catching this bug!  I was back at my sister’s by 1:00 and in bed by 1:01.  My poor sister deserves a medal.  I can be a challenging house guest to begin with but add in my whiney, impatient sick self and I’m sure she was tempted to send me right back to Trish.  I most certainly owe her a set of sheets to replace the ones she probably burned once I left.

Scene IV:  I did not sleep.  I coughed all night.  The coughing HURT.  Searing pain, like I’ve never felt when coughing.  When I woke up Saturday, I had no voice.  None.  Not even a squeak!  And Saturday was the family lunch for Mom’s birthday.  There were 7 of us at a rectangular table for 8.  I sat on one end.  My one sister sat across from me, Mom beside her.  My other sister, her husband, son and his girlfriend took the four seats at the other half of the table, leaving an empty seat beside me.  At first I was a little pissed.  They couldn’t have left the empty seat at the other end of the table?  They had to isolate me like I was sick and contagious……oh wait.  I was!  Fairly quickly, though, I was grateful for the seating arrangements.  I didn’t have to participate in that lunch at all!  Call me a bad sister/aunt/daughter but I was very happy to sit there and partly listen, drink hot tea, and move food around on my plate.  I didn’t feel frustration at wanting to correct blatantly wrong commentary since I couldn’t have voiced my opposition even if I’d wanted to!  I didn’t have to make any small talk!  I zoned out, smiled occasionally, and pulled out my credit card at the appropriate time to pick up my share.  Sometimes, I realized, it’s very nice to not have to talk.

That carried over to the Uber ride to the airport on Monday and may have even helped me get on an earlier flight home (I think the gate agent felt really sorry for me.  And just wanted me to go away and take my germs with me).  No need for small talk on the plane.  I was able to ignore anyone I wanted!  I should not have been so happy.

The frustration returned when I got into the car with Trish and actually wanted to talk for the first time in days.  All told, my voice was completely gone for five full days and barely squeaky for another two.  I remembered when, after Super Storm Sandy hit and I lost electricity for 4 days, how I noticed all the little ways you never realized how much you took power for granted.  Paraphrasing Scarlett O’Hara, I vowed to never to take electricity for granted again!  (But, of course, I do every day.)  Similarly, I was amazed over that week at how much I took having a voice for granted.  But then I also was aware of how having no voice gave permission for a lazy introvert like me to just stay within my head.  There is something to be said for that.

One week later, I am back with the “voiced” albeit still a bit gravely.  I now have no excuse not to answer the phone when it rings (dang) and I can’t just stay in my head.  I’m back to talking back to the TV, which I’m sure Trish is thrilled at (this was a bit of a vacation for her, too).  But that week was a real lesson for me in both privilege and power—topics we will definitely hit on when I talk again about having no voice, but this time figuratively!

A few times in your life you are lucky to meet someone who can best be described as a force of nature.  My mother-in-law, Peg Lawlor, was such a person.  As we recognize the one year anniversary of her passing, I wanted to share a little of her with you and the impact she continues to have on me. 

I met my wife, Trish, not quite five years ago after a lifetime of searching.  How we met is a story for another time, but suffice to say that we met, and when we did my life changed immeasurably for the better.  I had considered myself a “fully formed” person by the time I hit my 50’s, yet Trish opened up an entire world to me that I didn’t even know I wanted.  She had a close group of long time friends and an extended family that was both physically and emotionally close.  But no one in this group taught me more about the importance of family (both blood and chosen) than her Mom, Peg.

Meeting Peg was by far the most angst-inducing part of the process of integrating into Trish’s life.  Not that the rest of it was easy!  The members of her “posse”, a group of wonderful down to earth and embracing people, each pulled me aside one by one to basically threaten me with dismemberment if I mistreated this woman who meant so much to them.  Her two sisters, brother, attendant spouses and nine nieces and nephews essentially descended upon me en masse to check me out.  Keep in mind that I come from a small, very quiet southern family.  My head just about exploded trying to keep track of who-knows-how-many gregarious, story-telling, everyone-talking-at-once Irish Philadelphians.

I sensed, though, that meeting Peg—the matriarch of this clan—was going to be a critical step.  Knowing that she was a fellow scotch drinker, I made sure to pick up a bottle of her favorite label before our introduction (just the three of us).  I don’t think Trish knew how nervous I was.  But I didn’t need to be.  I felt folded into her metaphorical embrace from the moment we met.  And also from the moment we met, I knew someone very special had just come into my life.

The family would get together regularly, be it for holidays, birthdays or just because.  Peg held court wherever and whenever we were together.   She inherited a wicked story telling gene from her father and while she clearly passed it on to her offspring, she was still the best.  She would hold us in rapt attention and laughing in stitches every time.  I learned to restrict fluids whenever going to one of these gatherings.  (Any post-menopausal woman reading this essay will get that reference!)

All the grandkids wanted to hear GrandMarge (she didn’t want to be called Grandma) tell stories.  For Peg, this was a critical way of keeping family lore intact and establishing that critical family bond across the generations.  And thanks to a turn of luck, I got to spend a good amount of one-on-one time with this amazing woman during the last few years of her life. 

Life was clearly sending me a signal toward the end of June in 2016.  Over the span of just one week, Trish and I combined households, my old home sold, and I lost my job.  As I looked to transition to retirement, I took on a bit of regular “Peg” responsibility since I had the time during the week.  Every Wednesday, I would take Peg to the hairdresser, run a few errands for her and usually grocery shop.  This was one-on-one time for us and gave us the chance to really talk.  I will treasure those Wednesdays with Peg for the rest of my life.

We talked about a lot of things, but most often family.  I learned about her father, how important family was to him and how he ingrained that thinking into his children.  She told me so many stories about when her kids were young, summers in the Poconos, all the trouble they (ok, especially Trish) would get into and the blessing that her grandchildren had been.  Knowing that she was nearing the end of her days on this earth, we talked a lot about how important it was to her that her children and grandchildren carry on that family closeness.  It wasn’t about her.  It was about passing on the richness of those connections and the security of that familial embrace.  Look, life was not perfect.  There were times of stress and discord.  She would agonize whenever any of her kids weren’t getting along, but knew she couldn’t interfere.  “They are going to have to work things out once I’m gone,” she’d say. “I know they will work through it now.”  She had provided the example and push during their younger lives.

But it was more than these discussions of family.  It was that sense I would get during our time together of feeling strongly connected and cared for by someone I also cared for deeply.  I struggle over the words, here, because this was such a unique relationship for me.  She made me feel special just by spending time with me.  We would verbally spar and tease each other.  She would ask my thoughts just as often as I asked for hers.  She brought me into this fabulous world that revolved around her (although she never noticed how much people wanted to be around her).

I know members of my own birth family are reading this essay and I don’t want them to feel that I have absorbed my in-laws to the exclusion of them.  On the contrary, the lessons I’ve learned from Peg have caused me to pull closer to them.  Everyone has been up here to visit (as well as at our wedding) and I think they each understand what I mean when I talk about the uniqueness of this family.  Peg taught me to value every member of my family more deeply and try to understand them and engage with them in a way that will continue to strengthen bonds.  The distance is hard, but we’re trying (with varying degrees of success).

Peg suffered through a long and painful decline.  It took its toll on the family and strained relationships at times.  Her passing hit all of us hard.  But at the luncheon after her funeral, dozens of friends and extended family members laughed and drank and told stories until the wee hours.  (I didn’t last until the wee hours, but I heard tell.)  We even passed a microphone around so all could share in the laughs.  And now, about a year later, I know Peg is with us whenever we get together in fours or eights or a dozen or more.  We laugh, we love.  We share minutia, we back each other during difficult times.

That legacy that was so important to Peg, even though she didn’t see it as her legacy, lives on and will continue to live on through her kids and grandkids, cousins and spouses, and even various hangers-on that so want to be a part of this magic.  I was so blessed to know this woman and be embraced by this family.  What I will be forever most grateful for, though, were those Wednesdays with Peg.

This essay is my last installment (for now) on the process I’ve identified for transitioning into retirement.  The first two essays in this series described that process and explored the first three steps in detail.  Today, I’m going to take you through the last two steps and leave you with some final thoughts on this exciting time in your life.

When we last left our riveting story, I was struggling with what to do with my time once I had detoxed from thirty years of intense work and had enjoyed months of stress-free endless vacation time.  Alas, all good things must come to an end and I started to get “rutchey” (for those of you who don’t know Pennsylvania Dutch, it means I got “shpilkes”).  One of the first forays I made into “doing something that means something” was reaching out to a local woman’s college and offering myself to their Chemistry Department.  I wanted to mentor young women going into the sciences, giving them the benefit of my years of hard won wisdom.  At first, they were thrilled.  But since I brought the idea to them instead of being “recruited”, the responsibility to define the nature of engagement fell to me.  I gave a presentation to their upper classmen, who clearly did NOT get my humor and didn’t know what to do with me. The professors really only wanted me to get them free help to fix and maintain analytical instruments.  Over a fairly short period of time, I got tired of the hour drive up to the Valley and definitely tired of the effort required on my part to gain acceptance.  I felt like I was pushing myself on them and had already spent too many years pushing, pushing, pushing to advance in my career.  No, this wasn’t what I wanted.  Not now.  So, I stopped showing up and they didn’t seem to care.

Could I have made a real difference there?  Absolutely.  I could have spent a lot more time on campus and developed a detailed structure to guide my interactions with students, faculty and staff.  With time and persistence, I could have built a place for myself there that I know would have made a difference for them and for me.  And, in fact, they did ask if I’d consider being an adjunct professor and teach some lab sections.  (Trish and I were starting to travel more and I wasn’t about to make a commitment to a semester of teaching that would curtail that!)  But this wasn’t the Catharsis I was looking for.  I took on a few short consulting gigs that basically involved me pontificating on the phone and getting paid $250 an hour.  THAT I really enjoyed!  But, again, I was happy letting those opportunities come to me instead of searching them out and marketing my knowledge. 

Then I got a phone call from the President of an industry group that I’d been involved in for years.  I was even serving on their Board of Directors when I left Intertek.  The request was to come on board as a Project Manager of an initiative that I had championed when I was on the Board.  I was really excited about the topic!  I said No.  He called again.  I said No again.  Just as a rabbi makes you knock on the door a third time as a way of demonstrating commitment before you can convert to Judaism, I waited for that third call.  Trish encouraged me to go visit them and give it a hard look.  She could see the passion in my eyes and hear it in my voice.  She knew this was something I wanted to do.  I had reached Stage Four:  Catharsis.

I signed a one year contract and over that time was able to advance a passion around Innovation Leadership training into a reality.  Did everything go perfectly?  Emphatically no.  Did I achieve all I wanted to achieve in that time period?  No again.  But, boy, did I enjoy that year!  I reconnected with a number of people whom I really respected and enjoyed being with.  They validated that I still had solid ideas and perspectives which was quite healing.  (I was even presented with about a half dozen job opportunities, should I have wished to have gotten back into an industrial position.)  And, I put together a product that I felt fulfilled my vision on what this educational tool should do.  I even recruited my successor.  That year of contract work was exactly what I needed.  But the one year was enough.  I had entered a New Normal (Stage 5) but that didn’t mean it was permanent. 

There certainly are people who go through this cycle once and embrace a New Normal that will last the rest of their lives.  That is awesome but it is not my story.  I lost my energy around the topic of Innovation Leadership which had been a part of my life for so long. Once I handed over project leadership I went right back into Detox.  Did I consider this a failure?  No, not by a long shot.  I realized that this cycle of transition is going to continue for the rest of my life.  I know I’m still growing, learning and evolving.  For thirty years, that happened in the context of an industrial career.  I changed position and focus multiple times over that period.  Now I’m a freelancer and those changes will happen outside of the umbrella of a single context.

A lot of changes have already happened over the time since I left Intertek.  I moved.  I got married.  I integrated into my tight family of in-laws.  I began to travel.  I got onto a sharp growth curve, this one more personal than professional.  My desire to write began to build again.  I had written a piece about my old synagogue that was published a decade ago and the impact of that essay was brought home to me again last year. I went to the Bat Mitzvah of the young girl at the center of that story.  The Rabbi read my essay as his message to her and it brought back to me the joy I got from writing.  Then last fall was that horrendous mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.  It affected me more than I realized and an essay came pouring out.  I posted it on Facebook.  The response I got was unexpected and blew me away.  I could reach people with my words.  It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.  Now was the time to try it.

That was my most recent Catharsis and led to the creation of this blog.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the process thus far and am under no illusion that I will become a viral sensation.  (Although, Oprah, if you’d like to talk with me about my thoughts I’m easily reachable.)  I also know that this is not my last cycle through the Five Stages of Transitioning to Retirement.  At some point, the need to grow will push me again.  I have no idea what direction I might move toward and I’m excited to find out!  I know I am blessed to have the means to let this process lead me where it may.  And I am doubly blessed to have all of you join me on this journey!