Why here? Why now?

So, let’s get this party started!

Nah, the title I’ve given this blog doesn’t refer to menopause – or not just to menopause, although that might be a topic sometimes, but I thought if I referenced that Big Change somewhere upfront, it might be a clue that this blog is intended for women of a certain... a certain, special... age. Or for women approaching midlife who want to get a handle on what’s coming up. Yowza! Or are leaving midlife and are willing to share the wisdom of their experience. Please.

Maybe you’ve stumbled upon this blog by accident (instead of being driven there by the whips I’ve employed on some of my friends). If so, I’ll start by introducing myself. I’m Jerri Corgiat. I’m of that certain age. I have one son, now 18, and I’m now glad I let him live that long although there was a recent time when it was tempting not to. I’m divorced (almost two years now—although I still refer to him as my husband intead of my ex-husband; when does that stop?). And, until last year, I (with my sister’s help) managed the care of our aging parents.

I mention these things as, for the most part, they constitute my credentials for this topic. I’m sure you have similar.

I’m also a writer, a published one. As such, I have a web site and I issue a newsletter. And these things I mention because that’s where this all got started.

When the career-going got tough in the last year, I got... I got to whining a lot. I whined to my friends, to my family, and, not wanting to spare anyone, to the people who subscribed to my newsletters. I whined about how much I’d been through. I whined about how hard it was to keep a stiff upper lip. I whined some more about how much I’d been through...

And then one day I realized I’m not all that special. Yes, a lot has happened—there’s been a lot of change. I’ll spare the details for now, as I don’t want this blog to get bogged down in the wailing and gnashing of teeth—at least, what teeth I have left. Suffice it to say (I love that phrase—kind of rolls off the tongue), in the past few years, I’ve seen a lot of change. I no longer fill a daughter’s role or a wife’s. My mother role has shifted as my son has graduated. He still lives at home, but I’ve relinquished control. (You know. Control. That thing we fool ourselves into thinking we have.) I’ve also moved from a home I loved into one I still only just kind of like, and am—as writers like to put it since it sounds much more gentle than hosed—between contracts. I’ve also started a new part-time job as a writing instructor. Another change.

Some of these changes have contributed to—probably escalated—all those other changes that also come along right about now, like...

The physical:
Hello? When did I start getting the hint of a jowl line that one day will look like my Uncle LeRoy’s?.

The mental:
Where, exactly, was my mind at when I hung up my car keys in the freezer?

And the emotional:
My God, I’m pretty certain I now have the mortuary’s phone number memorized...

(Okay, okay. Maybe too much dark humor, but sometimes that’s the best I—and probably you—can do. Better than no humor at all.)

So, yes, lots of change, but the only thing special about what’s happened in my life is that it all landed at once. Along with the trauma and... let’s call it what it is: near-psychosis... that gives rise to. As a friend of mine once put it—and I think she was just contemplating the rush-hour traffic at the time, not the fact that she had one kid leaving for London and the other for the wilds of Montana after nineteen years of fixing their dinner: “I’m either depressed... or homicidal.”

Of course, you’ve been there. So I asked the subscribers to my newsletter if they wanted to discuss it a little. And many of them said yes. So here we all are. I’ll post a little; you post a little. We’ll celebrate together and moan together and weep together and share what’s helped get us through. And what hasn’t.

In short, let’s party.