Really, I'm (We're) Fine [Me]

I just finished posting a note on Facebook that's part apology, part reflection, and part a teaching on the importance of perspective. I thought I'd just copy it here.

Someone recently pointed this out to me, and I wanted to share and apologize. It's a reminder how experience and your viewpoint can affect your perception of things.

Let's take a hypothetical person who is a lot like me. She's spent her entire adult life raising her child, but now that child is grown up and gone off to college. Most of her family has moved out of town, and after two failed marriages, she's lost a lot of her friends from years past. She's been stuck in the same job for nearly ten years, and always seems to be just making it by financially. And yet she stays extremely busy, as if she's chasing after some fun before it's too late. In the fall a year after her child headed off to college, she starts posting a lot on Facebook about going to the doctor. Then she shaves her head clean. And then starts giving away a lot of her belongings, with some thin excuse about simplifying her life. This is someone who's always been prone to some moodiness, and is known to try to over-plan things to be in control of them. What's the reasonable conclusion about this woman? Cancer? Some other terminal disease? Maybe a suicide risk?

For anyone who has followed those clues to one of these scary conclusions, I'd like to apologize. I never intended to worry anyone. But it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion - just not a correct one.

Let's tell the story a different way. I have done a kick-ass job of raising my daughter into a fabulous human being. And in the last few years, I've worked hard to redefine myself by gathering in new friends that I really enjoy spending time with. I'm running around have a lot of fun - because now I have the time and a tiny bit of free cash to do so. My job is stable, so if I want to do something fun and a little crazy like shaving my head, I'm not really worried that it's going to cost me my job or anything. And yet, along with having a lot of fun, it's time to be responsible and get my life all in order. That includes getting some long overdue dental work and medical checkups to make sure I can handle the fun I'm getting into. And part of cleaning up my responsibilities included looking around and realizing that I have a lot of stuff that I have 'by default'. It's stuff leftover from when Mom moved. Or stuff that I had for some purpose long ago but haven't used in years. Or stuff that's just accumulated and is taking up space. So it needs to go.

Anyway, lesson learned about perspective. I'm fine, there's nothing wrong with my health that losing 40 pounds wouldn't fix. Shaving my head was for fun, not in fear. And I'm getting rid of stuff because I just have too much of it. Love to you guys for caring, and apologies to anyone that I may have worried. Relax, and come hang out sometime.