Best birthday ever: 81 with my boyfriend, Washington DC Harbor, 2025
While living in Los Angeles, I started this blog fourteen years ago to share my enthusiasm for making art. It was a novelty to be able to share images in vivid color through the internet. In previous years, as a hobby, I spent many hours processing photographic film and printing only black and white images in my home lab.
In 1997 I moved back to the east coast, Northern Virginia, to find a husband with shared interests and values. We met in 2002 and were married a few years later, in 2006. I was 62. I met his mother in a nursing home where she had been living for several years with dementia that was diagnosed at age 80. We never thought that her son, at 67, would receive the same diagnosis. My life took a turn as his sole caregiver until he passed seven years later, in 2019. At the end, words were meaningless, but he knew that he loved me and remembered how to kiss, a last goodbye.
This blog became a way of communicating with his family the progression of his decline with dementia. It felt like art making was wrenched from my spirit, as I was filled with anticipatory grief. After he passed, I traveled to many places: Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Vietnam, Cambodia, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. I was searching for a feeling of wholeness, away from vulnerability, and re-establishing myself as a single, independent woman.
Looking back, I think about how I persevered through some difficult circumstances and emotional turmoil throughout my life. “You’re strong, you’ll be OK,” others told me and I hoped they were right. At 81, I have found peace and happiness, ready to slow down and reminisce about my journey.
And long ago:
- At 16 ½ I escaped from childhood abuse by finding a path to live on my own after graduating from High School in Brooklyn, New York. Determined to find a way to earn a college degree, I worked full-time and attended classes four nights per week, commuting to work in New York City by subway. I found an apartment to share near the campus that was listed in the classified ads of The New York Times with rent I could afford, $45 per month. I worked, studied and forfeited sleep. I was confident that I could persevere if I had a token in my pocket to ride to work on Friday paydays. I survived on 25¢ Frozen Fried Rice. I had dreams of a career that would sustain me and hope reinforced with every strap-hanging Brooklyn train ride over the Manhattan Bridge. I never stopped to think about the challenges I would face, I just had to succeed. Determination is a powerful ally.
- Graduating High School in only 2 ½ years, I was in an expedited program. Classes ran on a double shift to accommodate the large number of post-WWII children, and my school day was over by 1PM. I rode the subway from Brooklyn to Wall Street, and filed index cards with hand-written insurance policy data at Metropolitan Life Insurance.
- This was not my first job. I started working in Junior High, at age 13, helping children stay safe at the local YMCA (community center) with an Olympic-sized swim pool. In the girl’s locker room, I was the attendant to help children use tall hair dryers which you put your head inside while sitting very tall on a seat below. I also monitored the centrifuge that was an electrically powered tub which quickly twirled and vibrated to remove moisture from dripping-wet swim clothes and towels. I earned $21 every two weeks and gave my Mom $5 towards the rent, a lesson intended to teach the value of a dollar.
- One summer, while still in college, I took a secretarial course, learned Pittman Shorthand, and my first fulltime job was as an accountant for a catalog publisher and photographic studio. I loved working with a diverse group of creative people.
- I moved to Manhattan and found a room in a boarding house/hotel exclusively for women. I was so excited to be living in the city, never mind that I was sharing shower and toilet facilities with all residents on my floor, a dozen women. No guests were allowed.
- I worked until I was 64 in financial departments in the advertising industry and an entertainment studio. I retired after 51 years of corporate life in 2008.
Jerry Herman, lyricist and composer, says it best in his song, “The Best of Times”:
“The best of times is now
As for tomorrow, well, who knows
So hold this moment fast
And live and love
As hard as you know how
And make this moment last
Because the best of times is now, is now
Now, not some forgotten yesterday
Now, tomorrow is too far away”