Let me start by wishing everyone reading this a happy, healthy and contented new year.
Seriously, how did it get to be 2020 already? It seems like only yesterday that our office IT guys were threatening to no longer support our computer system if we didn’t do a “serious” (IT Speak for expensive) upgrade before Y2K (the year 2000) when no one was sure what would happen when the century changed. (Considering that most computer systems were no more than 50 years old, it’s hard to believe that no brilliant rocket scientists had taken into account that 19 would be turning into 20 in not that many years.)
Thanks to Facebook, I’ve been seeing quite a few posts asking me to share my “word” for 2020. I admit that in past years, I’ve been hard pressed to come up with a word representing my hopes, dreams and good intentions for the new year. However, for 2020, I do have a word. Actually, I have two words:
REIMAGINING REINVENTION
This intentional introspection may have been triggered by my receipt of a certain red, white and blue card from Uncle Sam in 2019. My local public transportation authority wants to let me ride buses for free, and no one wants to see an ID card with my birthday when I claim eligibility for a senior discount. In fact, sometimes they even want to tell me about a senior discount before I mention it.
I was in the first coed fresh”man” class at Williams College in 1971. I was furious at a neighbor who teased me that I was only going there to find a husband. Surprisingly, I found two, but I was a serious student, intent on obtaining sufficient education to be able to support myself.
With a double major in history and Spanish, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do as a career. I considered teaching, but the first job I was offered was as a bilingual paralegal with a legal aid program. Two years as a paralegal convinced me I could do what the lawyers were doing, so I enrolled in law school. I spent three years reading fine print until all hours of the night to earn the law degree that would allow me to take the Bar Exam necessary to obtain a license to practice law.
I worked as a more than full time lawyer for over 25 years. I filed my last legal brief in 2015, but I’ve still been spending several hundred dollars each year to renew my law license. On top of that expense, each year I pay to attend 12 hours of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) courses which are required to maintain a license to practice law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I actually don’t mind attending the classes. I pick subjects that interest me, and I usually leave feeling that my brain has been stimulated and wondering if I miss practicing law. Nanosecond later: Nah!! Will this be the year I surrender the law license I worked so hard for?
In 2012, I started this blog. It also requires a financial outlay to have it hosted on a remote computer server. I invest additional funds to attend conferences to improve my blogging skills and for technical assistance. A good number of my travel blogger friends have developed their blogs/websites into careers. For many bloggers in my demographic, blogging is an encore career (a reinvention), but a career nonetheless. I’m always still a little surprised at how many of my fellow travel bloggers are also recovering attorneys.
In 2014, I discovered Zentangle, a meditative creative art form. I was pretty immediately captivated. In 2015, I laid out some serious cash to attend a seminar to become a Certified Zentangle Teacher. I’ve given a few classes, but I’ve spent far more on tangling supplies than I’ve earned. You don’t want to give me a credit card and set me loose in an art supply store.
My husband, Mr. Excitement, still has a day job, we no longer have a mortgage, our sons are independent and self-supporting saints be praised, and my husband’s travel for work provides opportunities for me to be a “trailing spouse”, most recently on a five week around the world trip that had an inauspicious start. However, I still have a residual Puritanical feeling I should be working and contributing to the family fisc; that if I’m not going to be a lawyer, I still need to reinvent a career.
I have trouble saying the “R” word and still hesitate before I write “retired” on forms inquiring as to my employment status. However, if “work” is defined as providing a good or service for remuneration, then, in truth, what I am is “retired with significant hobbies”. Maybe that’s okay—which brings me back to my words for 2020. I plan to use 2020 to “reimagine reinvention“.
Now for this week’s Hump Day Zentangle Challenge:
Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge #25:
Tangle Your 2020 Word
(If Zentangle is a new concept for you, you can read more about it here.)
As I’ve explained endlessly above, my word(s) for the new year, 2020, are Reimagine Reinvention. Most of you can probably think of a word that is.actually.one.word because you’re not recovering lawyers and therefore, can express concepts concisely. If you also have more than one word, that’s okay too.
Please Share Your Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge Creations!
Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Zentangle Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge25. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll be happy to add you. The more the merrier.
There are other ways to share your work: We also have a Pinterest group board to share our Hump Day Challenge responses. Email me at suzanne@boomeresque.com if you’d like me to add you as a contributor to the Pinterest board or you can mention that in a comment below with your Pinterest name.
If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Loved your life synopsis here. Another word is Refresh. It’s interesting that when things stop or disappear on the computer you are invited to Refresh.
And then sometimes when you “refresh”, you lose things, but maybe that’s ok too.
I can’t tell you how much I love to view Zentangles. Love love love.
You should give Zentangle a try sometime. It’s very calming and actually focuses the mind or lets it be “mindful”.
Happy New Year, Susanne! I enjoyed reading your life history synopsis and wish you much success in whatever you choose to do. “Retired with significant hobbies” sounds good. 🙂
If I were to choose a word, it might be “rejuvenate”. I may have used that one before. Cheers!
Happy new year to you too. Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts. Here’s to being “refreshed”!
I’ve seen Zentangle before but not entirely sure how it works. I can’t draw so it’s probably not for me.
The beauty of Zentangle is that you don’t have to know how to draw. While some of it looks complicated, it’s really simply straight lines or curved lines in repetitive patterns. It’s considered a meditative art form.
Happy New Year! I too am retired with hobbies . Writing, snacking, and napping are winning so far!!
Forget “retired” – your status is “reimagining reinventor” ;-)))
I will check out Zentangle tomorrow and report back.
Happy new year!
I love when you take road trips into your past. It’s always so interesting and you always hit areas that hit me, too. I always put “Writer” in the job category – it doesn’t say “Job With Pay”! I will never retire – to me, most people who retire end up dying early – I plan to keep growing bolder, learning, changing, growing – and if I’m having fun all the better! My word is – clarity – I want more clarity on certain topics! Learning, stretching – and picking up some things I let drop – like the vocal exercises and drawing/watercolor – I have so many art projects in various degrees of “unfinishedness” – it’s time to change that. Sounds like neither one of us needs to be let loose in an art supply store!!