Tag Archives: friends

The Sprained Foot

Posted on by
4

Here’s how it happened and how it is three weeks later.

I didn’t blog about this when it happened. It may have been embarrassment. Or it may have been because my life got very busy for a while with house guests and day trips and life in general.

It was on Monday, August 5. I’d spent much of the day — the third or fourth day in a row — out at my future homesite in Malaga, clearing out invasive weeds along the driveway and the road in front of my house. It was hot, exhausting work, but I felt good at the end of each day. Like I was working toward a goal. (Am I the only person who feels that way while making progress on a project?)

That particular day, I’d been using a gas-powered hedge trimmer to cut weeds. I’d rented it from Home Depot. The tool did the job, but not as easily as I’d hoped. And it was a bitch to get started. I returned it that afternoon, contemplating the purchase of a chainsaw again.

On the way home — it was probably about 5 PM at the time — I stopped at the supermarket to buy groceries. Because I had so much junk in the truck I did something I very rarely do: I put the 5 or 6 grocery bags in the truck’s bed.

That was my mistake.

When I got home, I discovered that the grocery bags had shifted around in the back of the truck. So I lowered the tailgate and climbed up to gather them together. They were the usual plastic shopping bags and I grasped them by their handles with four in one hand and two in the other. I walked to the back of the truck, stood on the edge of the tailgate and crouched down with my butt about four inches off the tailgate. I put my right hand down on the tailgate and launched my feet off the back of the truck.

Keep in mind that this little jumping maneuver is something I do regularly. The distance to the ground is only about 3 feet. By crouching and launching like that, I minimize the impact of the landing. I do it all the time. I’ve never had a problem.

Except that Monday. As I launched my feet off, one of my feet — maybe my right? — got hung up on the rough surface of the spray-in bed liner. It could have been because I was tired from a full day at work, but it was more likely complacency — not thinking about what I was doing because I had done it so many times before. I didn’t make a clean jump. I realized this as I was falling and tried to recover.

I don’t know exactly how I landed, but I suspect my left foot took most of the impact on an angle. My left knee and the palms of both hands hit the gravel next. The grocery bags crashed all around me.

I immediately thought of the Tito’s vodka and Maker’s Mark bourbon what were in the bags. It would be a real shame to break the bottles of $50 worth of liquor.

But pain interrupted those thoughts. Lots of pain. I was hurting badly. I rolled over on my back and began taking inventory on body parts. One by one they checked in OK. Except my left foot. That was just registering pain.

I sat up and gathered the bags together. Neither bottle had broken. Whew!

I sat for a moment more. My left knee was bleeding but the palms of my hands were fine. That could have been worse, I thought to myself.

It was. When I tried to stand up, I realized I couldn’t put any weight on my left foot.

Oddly enough, I didn’t think much of the problem at first. After all, we’ve all gotten hurt in silly little accidents and after the initial shock wears off, everything works fine. I figured that my foot or ankle — whatever was sending those pain messages to my brain — was just whining a bit longer than usual.

In the meantime, it was hot and I was thirsty. I managed to get to my feet and sort of hop over to my RV. My porch was a bit of a challenge and I honestly don’t remember how I got up the stairs. I put down the bags of groceries and poured myself a glass of lemonade with lots of ice. I drank it all and refilled it.

My ankle was still sending those pain messages. What was up with that?

I sat down on the steps that lead up to my bedroom and pulled off my shoe. My foot seemed to explode into a swollen mass. I couldn’t move my toes.

This was not good. There was a chance, I realized, that I may have actually broken something.

I pulled out my phone and called my friend Kathryn, who lives in the orchard.

“What are you doing?” I asked once the greetings were over.

“Nothing much,” she replied. “Just hanging around, enjoying the weather.”

“Could you do me a favor?” I asked.

“Sure. What do you need?”

“Could you drive me to the hospital? I think I might have broken my ankle.”

The tone of the conversation changed immediately to once of concern and urgency. A few minutes later, Kathryn and her husband Donn were out in front of my trailer with their truck. I used a stepladder as a cane to meet them on the driveway and managed to climb aboard.

They took me to a local clinic, which they thought would be faster than a hospital. Donn fetched a wheelchair and wheeled me in. I did the paperwork at the desk. And then they waited 90 minutes with me. (I have such great friends.) Kathryn came into the examining room with me to keep me company. I was x-rayed, poked, and prodded. It was pretty obvious that the problem was in my foot — not my ankle. The verdict came from the nurse practitioner who’d been assigned to me.

“It’s not broken. It’s a sprain.”

“That’s good,” I said, relieved.

“No, it’s not,” she corrected me. “For people over 40, sprains are usually worse than breaks. They take longer to heal.”

She wrapped me up with an ace bandage, gave me a prescription for pain meds, and told me where to find crutches at 7:30 on a Monday evening. She also gave me a sheet with the standard RICE advice.

My friends took me to Fred Meyer. Kathryn went in and returned with a set of crutches. Then we went to Olive Garden for dinner (their choice). I had a terrible drink and an excellent meal, which I only ate half of. By the time I got home, it was after 9 PM. I was glad I’d remembered to put away the yogurt before leaving.

Sore Foot
The day after my mishap was spent in bed with my foot elevated. But it swelled up anyway.

In the morning, I was amazed by how bad my foot looked. I took a picture and put it on Facebook. I spent much of the day in bed, trying hard to keep my foot elevated above the level of my heart.

Do you know how hard it is for me to sit still when I have things to do? It was a miserable day.

The next day, I had things to do and I wasn’t going to let my swollen foot stop me. So I wrapped it up grabbed the crutches, and got on with my life.

Of course, during this time I was still on contract for cherry drying. I had some concern over whether I’d be physically able to fly. After all, flying a helicopter requires four limbs, preferably healthy ones. But I put those concerns to rest on Wednesday when I fired up my helicopter and flew it down to Wenatchee for some scheduled maintenance. Fortunately, my helicopter doesn’t require much pressure on the pedals.

I admit I didn’t follow the RICE advice to the letter. Although I slept — or tried to sleep — with my foot elevated on two pillows, I didn’t ice it as often as I was supposed to and I certainly didn’t rest it very much. I was on two crutches for just two days and then just one crutch for a week. After the first week or so, I realized that it looked almost normal when I got out of bed but swelled up to epic proportions within a hour of being up and around. The swelling included my foot and ankle — indeed, I had a chankle. I ditched the crutches entirely about 10 days after my mishap. That’s when I flew my helicopter to Seattle to pick up a friend and did the tourist thing around Pike Place Market and the Space Needle. It was pretty swollen that night.

I’ve turned down five invitations from friends to go hiking. You have no idea how frustrating that is.

But I’ve also been out on my boat three times. Not much walking involved there. Once, while fishing, I sat on the swimming platform and dangled my feet into the Wenatchee River. The nice, cool water was soothing.

I’m now starting week 4 of healing. I’ve found a good compromise. When I prepare to go out for the day, I wrap my foot firmly in the ace bandage, put a sock over it, and put on my good walking shoes — ironically, the same ones I was wearing when the mishap occurred. The shoe gives my foot the support it needs; it only hurts when I step on uneven surfaces. Because the flexing motion of walking also causes pain, I have a pronounced limp when I try to walk quickly. But around my home, it’s not that bad. Yesterday, when I unwrapped it, it didn’t even look very swollen.

If I behave myself and stay off the hiking trails, I’m pretty sure I’ll be 100% healed by the end of September. That’s a long time, but I just have to deal with it.

As for jumping off the back of my truck — well, I think this little incident has reminded me that I’m not 22 anymore. We’ll see if I remember this lesson in the months and years to come.

A Friend Drops In…Literally. Again.

Posted on by
2

Why drive by when you can fly by?

At 6:15 Friday morning, my coffee was brewing into my cup and I was scrambling eggs for Alex the Bird and Penny the Tiny Dog. I heard a helicopter in the area and assumed it was the same spray pilot I’d seen earlier in the week working an orchard across the canyon. But when I went to the door to take a look, the helicopter I saw was not outfitted with spray gear.

Schweizer 300
My friend Woody on approach for landing in his Schweizer 300.

It was a Schweizer 300 and I knew my friend Woody was at the controls.

I tried calling him on the phone. He answered but I couldn’t hear his voice and didn’t know if he could hear me. I talked anyway: “Land on the gravel driveway of the house next door and I’ll make you breakfast.”

Penny Greeted my Guest
Penny greeted my breakfast guest as soon as he was on the ground.

He circled. I didn’t know if he’d heard me. So I came out and started pointing at the intended landing zone. One way or the other, he got the message. Moments later, he was setting down at the top of the driveway, only a few feet from the edge of the canyon. Penny ran over to greet him, even before he’d shut the engine.

I waited until the blades had stopped spinning before greeting him myself. After assuring him that the helicopter was fine parked there — my neighbor was away and not expected back for a long while — I led him back to my RV, the “mobile mansion,” with a promise of coffee and breakfast. I gave him my untouched cup, just brewed, and he found room at the table. I started a second cup brewing, made Alex and Penny their eggs, and tidied up the table. Then I got out the bacon and some eggs and made us breakfast while we chatted.

Woody is working with me — well, sort of for me — on my cherry drying contracts. A client with a 90-acre orchard came online on Wednesday and I still have another 40 or so acres under contract throughout the area. If my big client called for a dry, it would take me more than 2 hours to finish his orchard, thus leaving the others to wait. That would not be acceptable to them so it was certainly unacceptable to me. So I put out my feelers and found Woody’s company, based in Arizona and willing to make the trip to Washington for just the 8 days of work I could offer. They managed to get a short contract before starting with me and, if they’re lucky, they’ll get another contract when I release them.

Woody and I took a quick look at the orchards he might be called to dry from the air on Monday. On Tuesday, when he and his companions joined me at a Pot Luck BBQ I hosted for a Meetup group in Walla Walla Point Park, I gave him GoogleMaps-generated location information for each orchard. But this morning, when he woke to cloudy skies, he thought it would be a good idea to scout them again from the air in case he got called today. He was scouting the orchard across the canyon from me when he decided to fly by.

And that’s how he ended up at my dining table, sharing bacon and eggs with fresh-brewed coffee with me at 7 AM.

We chatted through two cups of coffee, then headed out in my truck. I had to go to the property I’m buying in Malaga to fetch a large wooden pallet I’d left there for my bee hives. I decided that the pallet, covered with a rug, would make an excellent “deck” for my poor man’s hot tub. He wanted to see the property, so he came along for the ride. I think he was impressed. (Everyone who has seen the property has been impressed — with one notable exception that’s yet another indication of his poor judgement.)

Back at the mobile mansion, Woody helped me pull some nasty staples out of the wood and position the pallet beside the tub. He told me that he’d seen another hot tub like it at a skydiving place he used to spend a lot of time at. (I knew the idea wasn’t original.)

Penny in a Schweizer
Penny is comfortable in any helicopter.

We talked about going down to the Rocky Reach Dam later in the day with another friend. Something else to kill time. (We’d spent much of the previous day on my boat in the Columbia River.) I had some errands to take care of in Wenatchee — I wanted to experiment with a hive split — so he headed out. I walked him down to his helicopter and posed Penny in his seat for a photo before he climbed on board.

Penny and I moved back as he started up. I videoed his departure, amused that he did the same drop-off maneuver that I usually did when departing my landing zone 100 feet farther up the hill.


Woody’s departure from the hillside landing zone is remarkably like mine: dipping off the side and speeding away.

It was nice to have a friend drop in by helicopter — especially so unplanned. (I love spontaneity and surprises!) But I’ll be honest: it wasn’t the first time.

And I don’t think it will be the last.

In Defense of Text Messaging

Posted on by
4

It does serve a real purpose.

The other day, one of my Twitter/Facebook friends linked to an article in the New York Times titled “How Not to Be Alone.” In his words, it was “highly recommended.” So I read it.

The piece started out with a story about seeing a 15-year-old girl crying into a cell phone during a discussion with her mother. The story went on for four paragraphs, with the author, Jonathan Safran Foer, using his fifth paragraph to discuss his moral dilemma: talk to this stranger to try to comfort her or “respect the boundaries” between them. He never does say what he chose to do.

From there, the article launches into a discussion of how modern day methods of communication are dividing us, weakening our relationships, reducing our ability to articulately communicate, and making it easier to “avoid the emotional work of being present” to communicate. He argues that by diminishing our communication with others, we diminish ourselves.

He says:

We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts. It’s not an either/or — being “anti-technology” is perhaps the only thing more foolish than being unquestioningly “pro-technology” — but a question of balance that our lives hang upon.

I read through the article twice without coming away with a one-line summary of what he was trying to say. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one having trouble with it because another Twitter friend replied to me and someone else with the simple — thank you, Twitter! — summary:

Don’t write when you can call. Don’t call when you can visit.

Simple enough. And I can certainly agree.

But it got me thinking about text messaging and the way it seemed to be painted, in the Times piece, as something that’s destroying society. And that bugged me.

Because I just don’t think it’s true.

Text Messaging for Work

You see, I use text messaging extensively for work. It gives me the ability to communicate instantly with clients and colleagues about things that they might want to know about right now. The key word there is might. If they must know about it now, I call their cell phone. But why bother them with a call when they might or might not be interested with the information I have to share? Or if I need an answer to a question but I don’t need it immediately — and know I will likely forget to ask if I do make a call later?

Here’s an example. My summer work requires me to be on call to fly over cherry orchards after it rains. The other day, there was rain in the area. I watched it move through on radar on my iPad. I saw it approaching an area where one of my clients has an orchard. I know he doesn’t live near there. I wanted to make sure he knew I was monitoring the weather and had some concerns about his orchard. So I texted:

Do you have someone at Malaga?

That was at 4:30 PM. His response came at 5:34 PM, after the weather had moved through:

Yeah. We made it through another close afternoon.

Communication accomplished. I didn’t have to call him to pester him with my question. He’s been growing cherries a lot longer than I’ve been drying them with a helicopter. I’m sure he had a handle on it. But by sending that quick text message, I communicated that I was aware of the situation and would be ready if he needed me. The fact that he didn’t respond for over an hour was okay with me. For all I know, he might not have even looked at his phone for an hour. He might have been busy watching the weather.

Do I communicate by text with all of my clients? No. Only the ones who have shown that they use text messaging to communicate by texting me first. When a client texts me, he’s telling me that texting is an acceptable or maybe even preferred means of communication. I’m okay with that.

I’m Not Alone

The title of the piece suggests that modern communication is making us more alone. I disagree wholeheartedly. If anything, text messaging has brought me closer to friends.

This morning, for example, while I was still in bed at 4:15 AM, I texted a friend on the east coast — where it was 7:15 — with a question. If he saw it immediately, great. If not, that was okay, too. He’d eventually see it and respond. But he was there at his desk and we had a text “conversation” about a bunch of things.

You might argue that when I realized he was available I should have picked up the phone and called him. But my friend works from home and uses his phone extensively for work. Chances are, our conversation would have been interrupted one or more times by incoming phone calls. Was our texted conversation important enough to disrupt his work day? No.

Although texting suggests a sort of immediacy to the conversation, it also makes it possible to put down and resume a conversation over time. Indeed, I’ve had texted “conversations” with people that have gone on for hours or days or even weeks. Could I accomplish this with phone calls? No — not without becoming a nuisance.

I can’t tell you how many friendships — including very old friendships — I have been able to maintain via text messaging and email. Sometimes it’s the best option.

The Trouble with Phone Calls

The problem with using the phone is that when you call someone, you’re saying, in effect, that it’s okay for you to bother him/her when it’s convenient for you. After all, you don’t usually call someone when it isn’t convenient for you, do you?

Of course, you can always schedule a phone call. Some of my publishing contacts do that. It makes sense. Take a meeting, on the phone.

But calling out of the blue? When someone might be busy? Just to chat?

I guess it depends on the kind of relationship you have with that person. I have plenty of friends who I feel comfortable calling to chat — at certain times of the day or evening. But if I don’t know a person very well, I think it’s rude to bother him/her with a phone call just to say hello.

Is that making me more alone? Not when I can fire off a quick text that might lead to a phone call when it’s convenient for both of us. Indeed, sometimes I’ll send a text message that says,

Are you around? Okay if I call?

Even if I don’t get a response, I get an answer to those questions: No.

Of course, this is assuming the person I want to reach lives with his/her cellphone at arm’s length all day every day. But that’s the kind of people I’m most likely to text anyway.

I’m not texting my mother or sister or a friend who keeps his cell phone packed away in a little backpack he uses as a manly man purse. (You know who you are!) I’m just texting the same people who text me.

In Person Meetings

When I was a kid, I’d go to my Aunt’s house in a nearby town. It aways amazed me how we’d be sitting around in the kitchen — the focal point for any Italian-American household — and one of her neighbors would walk right in. Often without even knocking on the door!

I’d love to live somewhere with all my friends nearby and be able to keep my doors unlocked at all times so they could walk right in and visit me. But that’s not my reality these days. Is it yours?

My world is bigger — my friends can be found all over the globe. They’ve chosen to live where they live just as I’ve chosen to live where I live. That doesn’t mean I won’t have super friendly neighbors when I finally build my new home. But I don’t really expect anyone to just “drop in” like we did in the old days.

Does that make me alone? I don’t think so. It makes me more likely to get out and about to get the social interaction I need with a wider variety of people in a wider variety of places.

So rather than sit around the kitchen table and wait for the same handful of visitors my Aunt’s family got, I’m getting out and expanding my world.

In Defense of Text Messaging

I’m not a kid. I’m in my 50s.

When I was a kid, we had three options for communication: face to face, telephone (which could be expensive if calling out of your immediate area), and mail (which took 2-3 days each way).

Today, we still have all of these things. Telephone use has become cheaper, mail has become more expensive. But we also have several free (or arguably low-cost) means of communication: fax (which is now, thankfully, almost dead), email, text messaging, and video conferencing. (And don’t get me started on self-publishing options — like social networking, blogging, print on demand, and ebooks — that make communication to the masses amazingly easy and cost effective.)

I can now communicate instantly for next to nothing with my friends and colleagues all over the world. I couldn’t do that when I was a kid.

I don’t understand how someone can argue that having and using more methods of communication — especially instantaneous, real-time methods — makes us more alone. If anything, it helps us connect better.

And text messaging is just one tool for doing that.

Your thoughts? Put ’em in comments so we can discuss.

Facebook Gifts Ads

Posted on by
Comment

Another in-your-face attempt to sell products and services by using the names of people you know to promote them.

Facebook is apparently taking every possible opportunity to throw an ad at me. Today, I clicked a link in a sidebar column telling me about a friend’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Jim!) and get a gift suggestion. If that’s not enough to convince me to use Facebook to buy Jim a gift, I’m presented with a list of friends who have succumbed to the pressure of Facebook gift ads. But rather than be convinced that I should follow the pack, I’m left wondering why my friends used this “feature.” Don’t they know that the more we respond positively to Facebook’s in-your-face advertising, the more advertising they’ll throw at us.

Facebook Gifts Ad

I should mention here that this browser has AdBlocker Plus installed, so these ads are getting past my first line of defense.

And yes, I’m aware that websites make money on advertising. But I find it extraordinarily offensive that people I know should be used to market goods and services to me. I hope that if my name appears attached to an ad anywhere on Facebook I’ll be told by someone who sees it. (With a screenshot, please.)

I Love My Life

Posted on by
10

Why I love my life — and how you can love your life, too.

I love my life.

That’s the thought that struck me last Saturday afternoon, as I walked across the transient parking area at Lake Havasu Municipal Airport, from the FBO office to my helicopter, swinging a plastic bag full of BBQ takeout.

I love my life.

The sudden thought amazed and exhilarated me. It put a skip to my step and made me smile.

I love my life.

This was near the end of a busy day when I’d spent 2-1/2 hours flying an aerial photographer and videographer over six different target vehicles in the 2013 Parker 250 off-road race. It had been hard, challenging flying, sometimes dangerously close to the ground, performing maneuvers that pushed the helicopter’s capabilities as much as — if not more than — I’d ever pushed them before.

This was the same day I’d been up at 5 AM and had gone out with just a half a cup of coffee and some oatmeal in my belly on a 31°F morning. The same day I’d preflighted my helicopter and pulled off its doors in the predawn gloom with just a Mini Maglite to light the way.

This was the day after I’d spent the night in a houseful of strangers — all men — sleeping in a bed on sheets that someone else had slept in the night before.

And it was only 24 hours — almost to the minute — after being offered the aerial photo gig 80 miles across the desert from my home.

It had been a most unusual and challenging 24 hours.

And I had enjoyed every minute of it.

I love my life.

I realized, as I walked across the airport ramp, smelling the aroma of my BBQ dinner and looking forward to the fried okra I’d nibble in flight on the way home, that I needed to blog about this sudden realization, I needed to document how and why I felt the way I did. I needed to capture the moment in my blog to remember it forever, just in case the feeling should fade due to events in the days or weeks or months to come. I needed to share it with others who may also love their lives but not really know it. And to share it with the folks who are missing the point of life — the meaning of life, if you will — in an effort to help them understand and set a course that would enable them to love their lives, too.

What I Love about My Life

In thinking hard about this, I think what I love most about my life can be broken down into several things: freedom, time, variety, travel, challenge, and friends. Bear with me while I address how each of these affect my life and personal philosophy.

Freedom.
Because I don’t have a “regular job” and I don’t have kids or a husband to answer to, I have the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want. If I feel like getting up at dawn to photograph first light over the desert, fine. If I feel like eating leftover Chinese food for breakfast, great! If I feel like hopping in the car with my dog and spending the night in Prescott after a pot-luck dinner with friends there, wonderful! Anything goes. My only limits are time (see below) and money.

Time.
Not having a “regular job,” kids, or a husband also means I can make my own hours and do things when I want to do them. Obviously I’m not completely free — I still have work to do and appointments to keep — but my time is extraordinarily flexible. For the most part, I make up my day and week and month as I go along. If something I’m doing needs more time, I take it. The only time of year when my time (and freedom) are restricted is when I’m on contract for agricultural work — but that’s only 11 weeks out of the year. (I don’t know too many people who would find that a hardship.)

Variety.
Back in 1987 (or thereabouts), I took a job as an auditor with a large residential developer. I did construction project audits. Every single audit took about two weeks to complete and was exactly the same. After two months, I started looking for another job. The lack of variety in my work was driving me insane.

I feel the same today — I thrive on variety. I like the fact that every day of my life is different. I wake up at different times, I do different things, I see different people, I eat different things, I go to different places, I go to bed at different times. Unless I’m elbow-deep in a book project that consumes 10 hours a day, no two days are the same. And that’s very nice.

Travel.
One of the benefits of time and freedom is the ability to travel. I love to travel, to get out and see different places. When things get dull — when I feel as if I’m slipping into a rut at home — I shake things up with a trip. I’ve been home in Arizona since September and have managed to take at least one trip every single month since I’ve been back: Washington (twice), Las Vegas, California, Florida, and Lake Powell (by helicopter). That doesn’t count the day trips and overnight trips I’ve squeezed in on a whim: Prescott, Phoenix, Winslow, Parker, and Tucson. And I already have my next three trips planned out.

I don’t travel as a tourist, ticking off items on a list of things to see. I travel to experience the places like someone who lives there. It’s a much better (and usually cheaper) way to experience the world.

Challenge.
What can I say about challenge? Simply put, a life without challenges is simply not a life worth living. I need goals — realistic and achievable goals — and I need to be able to work toward them.

My entire life has been a series of challenges and achievements, some minor, like learning to ride a motorcycle or horse, and some major, like building a successful career as a freelance writer or building a profitable helicopter charter business from the ground up. I’ve always got a handful of goals in my back pocket and am always working toward achieving the ones that mean most to me at the moment.

I’m fortunate to have a good brain and good work ethic — two prerequisites for success. I’m also fortunate to have good health, which makes everything else a lot easier. But I know plenty of people who have all these things and still don’t challenge themselves. They skate through life, doing the least they can do to get by comfortably, never challenging themselves to go the next step. I simply couldn’t live like that.

The best part of always having challenges and goals to work toward? I never get bored.

Friends.
It wasn’t until this year, when my marriage fell apart, that I realized how much my friends mean to me.

When I was married, living with my husband in Wickenburg or Phoenix, I didn’t have many good friends. I couldn’t. There was no room in my life to build and maintain friendships.

But when I went away to Washington for my summer work, my husband stayed behind. I began building strong friendships with some of the people I met. I also kept in touch with other friends from all over the world by phone, email, Twitter, and Facebook. This network of friends was amazingly helpful and supportive when my husband called me on my birthday in June and asked for a divorce. And they were even more supportive when I discovered, in August, the lies and the woman he’d been sleeping with. The pain of his betrayal is sharp, but my friends help ease that pain.

Even now that I’m home, dealing with harassment from my husband or his lawyer on an almost weekly basis, my friends have been extremely helpful, showering me with invitations to get out and do things together, offering me their homes as destinations for trips, or simply sharing words of encouragement and support. They not only take the edge off my divorce ordeal, but give me a great outlook on life.

Without good friends, no one can truly love their life.

How I Got Here

I got where I am the way most people get where they are in life — but with an abrupt turn and an important realization along the way.

The abrupt turn: career change
Raised in a lower middle class family, divorced parents, stepdad that brought us all up a notch and offered my family the financial security we never really had. High school, college. 9 to 5 job with a good employer and good benefits. A new job that wasn’t a good match (see above) followed by a better job with a Fortune 100 corporation. Things seemed pretty sunny for me.

But they weren’t. I wasn’t happy. I didn’t like the work I was doing. I didn’t like the way the hour-long commute — each way — was eating away at my life. I didn’t like corporate politics and game-playing. I was good at my job, I made good money, I kept getting raises and promotions, but I dreaded getting up in the morning.

Been there? I bet you have. Many people have.

Trouble was, I made a bad decision back in my college days. I always wanted to be a writer, but I was convinced by my family that I needed a better career path. I was the first in the history of my family to go to college, so it was a big deal. I was good with numbers and math so we figured accounting was a good course of study. I ended up with two scholarships in a great business school, Hofstra University on Long Island. But in my junior year, at the age of 19 — did I mention I started college at 17? –I began realizing that I really didn’t want to be an accountant. I wanted to be a writer. I called home and told my mother I wanted to change my major to journalism. She had a fit and told me I was crazy. That I’d never get a job. That I’d be giving up a great future. I listened to her. I was 20 when I got my BBA degree with “highest honors” in accounting.

I’ve always regretted listening to my mother that day. Indeed, that was the last time I took her advice on any important life decision.

I always wrote — I kept journals and wrote novels and short stories that were never published or seen by others. And I always remembered my dream of becoming a writer. So in 1990, when the Institute of Internal Auditors was looking for someone to author a 4-1/2 day course about using “microcomputers” (primarily 20-pound “laptops”) for auditing and there was a $10,500 price tag attached to it, I sent them a proposal and got the project. I asked my boss for a leave of absence to do the work but was turned down. So I quit.

And that’s when I began my freelance career.

Believe me, leaving a job that paid me $45K/year plus benefits (in 1990) at the age of 28 was not an easy decision. As you might imagine, my mother absolutely freaked out.

Looking back at it now, this abrupt turn in my career path marks the day I stopped skating through life and started challenging myself to do better.

And I did. I had some rough patches along the way — the first full year freelancing was pretty tough — but I worked hard and smart and picked up momentum, mostly by working multiple jobs as a per diem contractor while writing articles and books. By 1998 I had my first best-selling computer book; the second came the following year. By then, money was not a problem — I finally made more money than I needed to live comfortably. I saved, I invested, I put money away for retirement.

And I used my excess time and money to challenge myself again: to learn how to fly helicopters.

By 2001, I’d bought my first helicopter and was trying to start a business with it. In 2005, I took that to the next level with a new, larger helicopter and FAA Part 135 certificate. In 2008, I found the niche market — agricultural work in Washington State — that finally enabled me to turn a profit. As publishing began its death spiral, I was already prepared with a third career that could support me.

People say I’m lucky. I disagree. The only thing I’m lucky about is having a good brain and good health — and even that’s something that I work at. It’s my work ethic — my deep-rooted philosophy that the only way to get ahead is to work hard and smart — that made everything possible. I truly believe that if you have a reasonable goal and you work hard and smart, you can achieve it.

Being able to make a living doing what I really love to do — writing and flying helicopters — makes it possible for me to love my life.

The important realization: the meaning of life
On my journey through life, I also made an important realization that changed everything: I discovered the meaning of life.

No, it isn’t 42.

As far as I’m concerned, there is no meaning to life. Life just is. But there are some undeniable facts about life and careful consideration of those facts should guide you to get the most of your life.

I guess I can sum it up my realizations about this in a few bullet points:

  • Life is short — and your life might be even shorter than you expect.
  • You only have one life. (I don’t believe in an “afterlife” or something like reincarnation.)
  • You should live your life as if you’re going to die tomorrow. That means not putting off until tomorrow what you can do today. It also means skipping the “bucket list” and doing what you want as soon as you can. And, by simple logic, it also means not waiting until you reach retirement age to start doing all the things you’ve wanted to do. You might never reach that age.

I think the light bulb came on back in 2008. When my friend Erik got sick and died unexpectedly at age 56, I realized that life can be taken from you at any time. I decided that I wanted to live life now — not when I turned the standard retirement age of 65. I realized that I never wanted to retire — that I wanted to do some kind of income producing work for the rest of my life. But I also knew that I didn’t want to be a slave to my work, now or ever.

I realized that in order to really enjoy life, I had to ensure my current and future financial security. That meant shedding assets I didn’t need and the debt that went with them. That meant paying off debt on important assets I’d always need, like a roof over my head. That meant building my business while paying off debt on its assets so that the business could support me without taking over my life.

And I’ve done all that. My house was paid off last February; I made the last payment on my helicopter earlier this month. I haven’t bought a new car since 2003 so I have no car loans or personal loans. Everything I buy now is by cash or credit card and, if by credit card, it’s paid off in full at the end of the billing cycle. I live within my means. I have no debt.

Do you know how cheaply you can live when you’ve got a paid-for roof over your head and no debt?

Go back to my discussions above about freedom and time. I mentioned that I don’t have a “regular job.” I’m proud of that fact. I worked hard to become debt free so I’d never have to get a regular job. Being debt-free gives me time and freedom.

Being debt-free makes it possible for me to love my life.

Don’t Get Me Wrong — My Life is Not Perfect

I don’t want you to come away from this blog post thinking that my life is perfect and that nothing ever goes wrong. That’s simply not true. My life might be good and I might love it, but it’s far from perfect. It’s worth taking a look at what’s not quite right.

Personal failures
I mentioned above that I need challenge to enjoy life. You might think that I always succeed at what I try. The truth is, although I have a pretty good track record, I don’t always succeed in what I set out to do. Sometimes it’s my fault, sometimes it’s the fault of others I trusted or relied on — which is ultimately my fault for trusting or relying on them. Sometimes it’s just the fact that what I was trying to achieve wasn’t really possible for me to achieve.

One example is my stint as a landlord. Back when I starting making good money, I started investing in rental properties. At one point, I owned a condo, a house, and a 4-unit apartment building. The idea was to run these as a business that generated enough revenue to pay the mortgages and possibly a little extra. But try as I might, I simply could not succeed in keeping the units full with tenants who paid the rent on time and respected my property or their neighbors. There was never enough revenue to cover all the expenses. There were headaches with complaints and repairs and cleanup. It was a miserable ordeal that I hated. I wound up selling my properties before the housing market tanked. One of them resulted in enough of a profit to put a healthy down payment on my second helicopter, so I guess I can’t complain. But as a landlord, I was a complete and utter failure.

Then there were the aerial video projects I attempted back in 2008. I hooked up with a video production company based in the San Diego area. I’d worked with the owner and liked his work. He came up with a proposal and I signed up, giving him a chunk of money. I then spent at least another $10K on flying and related expenses to gather footage. And paid another chunk of money for him to start turning it into something. Then I saw the footage and what he was trying to pass off as a “trailer.” I realized that he was simply not capable of creating the products he had contracted with me to produce. I threw another $2500 at a lawyer, trying to get some of my money back, but the video guy was unreachable and I soon got tired of throwing good money after bad. Finally tally of money lost: about $40K. Ouch. That was an expensive lesson.

I’ve also had failures getting contracts for book ideas and books that simply didn’t sell very well. I’ve failed to get certain writing or flying or web creation jobs I wanted. I’ve made bad (or at least regrettable) decisions on purchases of RVs, vehicles, and property. I’ve trusted people I shouldn’t have trusted and said things I shouldn’t have said. I’ve dropped the ball when it was my turn to play it, thus making a successful outcome impossible. And I’ve even let other people down when they expected or needed my help. I’m not proud of any of these things, but I can’t pretend they didn’t happen.

There are two things I need to say about personal failures and bad decisions:

  • There’s no reward without risk. If you don’t take chances, you will never achieve anything. This all goes back to the idea of skating through life. People who skate do so on a flat surface, never moving up or down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained (or lost). People who take risks can either climb or fall — by taking measured risks and putting the right effort into achieving goals, they’re more likely to climb.
  • We must all take personal responsibility for our own decisions and their outcomes. While others might advise you based on their own experiences or agendas, it’s up to you to make the final decision. Once made, you must take and keep ownership of the decision. Yes, I’ve made some bad decisions in my life that have led to disappointment or failure, but I alone am responsible for them. And I can live with that.

Life partner
And that brings up the second big thing that’s not perfect in my life: I don’t have a life partner.

I did — or I thought I did — for 29 years. We met in 1983 and hit it off almost immediately. We began living together only six months after we met. He liked to use the word “partner” to describe our relationship, but the partnership began to get tenuous not long after we got married 6 years ago.

It took me a long time to realize this. For years I think we were life partners, a real team that shared the same interests, dreams, and goals. But as time went on, that changed. The man who had been my leader became my follower and then my ball and chain. It happened slowly over time — so slowly that I didn’t even realize it was happening. And even when I began to realize it, I couldn’t believe it and remained in denial. I loved him too much. I didn’t want to believe it. Even today I’m having trouble believing that the man I’m in the process of divorcing is the same man I fell in love with and began sharing my life with 29 years ago.

I think part of the change had to do with our outlook on the future. Where I wanted to shed unneeded financial burdens to gain freedom and live my life now, my husband didn’t share either goal or philosophy. His purchase of a second home in Phoenix put a huge financial burden on him, but he refused to sell it. (And I won’t even go into how his living there with a roommate four days every week drove a wedge between us.) His worries about saving up for retirement and paying his bills put him in a string of dead-end jobs with employers who didn’t appreciate his skill set or compensate him properly. He’d become a slave, working primarily to satisfy his huge financial responsibilities and refusing to take steps to improve his situation. He was frustrated and miserable — and, in hindsight, probably jealous of my freedom. He took it out on me, with a never-ending string of put-downs and arguments and “the silent treatment” that wore away at my self-esteem and made me bitter and angry.

Even after visiting a marriage counselor (at his request), when I went back to Washington for my summer work last May, he immediately began to look for my replacement. He found one on a dating website: a typical desperate, middle-aged woman who would do or say (or share photos of) almost anything to snare a man who could ensure her financial future in exchange for sex and ego-stroking. His birthday call to me included the announcement that he wanted a divorce and a series of lies I honestly didn’t think he was capable of.

The transformation of life partner to vindictive and hateful enemy was complete.

And while the pain of his betrayal is probably — hopefully — the worst pain I’ll experience in my life, it does free me from the only thing still preventing me from loving my life: him.

But it also leaves a void in my life, an empty space I thought I had filled. While I enjoy my life, I think I would enjoy it even more if I could share it with someone. Still, I know I’ll be very careful about who I invite to share it with me; I’d rather go through the rest of my life alone than to trust and rely on the wrong man.

Been there, done that. Ouch.

I Love My Life

But as I walked across the tarmac at Lake Havasu Airport last week, swinging my bag of BBQ takeout, I wasn’t thinking about the things that kept my life from being perfect. Indeed, thoughts of such things never entered my mind. Instead, I felt a surge of happiness — exhilarating and exciting — that overwhelmed me when I suddenly realized that I love my life for what it is.

Sure, I have some rough patches ahead of me. My financial situation will take a bit of a hit when I lose half the house and have no place else to live. But I still have my brains and my good work ethic and my health. And I have the business I worked so hard to build over the past ten years. And I have my imagination to think up new ideas and new challenges. And my willingness to take risks to move forward and up — and accept the consequences of my decisions and actions. And I have all those other things: freedom, time, variety, travel, challenge, and friends.

My life is ahead of me — not behind me. And I embrace it because I love it.