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Upon Reaching 72…
With a bit of Gratitude.
I was going through a bad time when my therapist told me to write down just what I was grateful for. Ah, the Oprah Winfrey therapy. So I will try.
Today is my 72nd birthday.
Cue the Beatles’ Birthday Song. I send it to family and friends on their birthdays.
It’s a bouncy, upbeat song…and you need upbeat when you reach your seventies.
I know. I’ve been through too many issues in the last 70+ years not to recognize how lucky I am to have made it this far and how much I have to be grateful for.
My childhood was marked by my father’s racism and disciplinary use of his belt and razor strap (he was a barber). But I evolved into a liberal “snowflake” anyway with the help of John Kennedy and John Lennon (and his buddies). So I am grateful for their influence.
I spent part of my twenties in nursing school when I really want to do something (anything) else and then more years as a wife/mother and the major breadwinner of the family. During that time I had surgery for cancer of the thyroid and back surgery — curse of the nurse. As my husband distance himself from me (he was in his closet), my self-esteem distanced itself from me. I worked as a nurse and mother, eventually raising my daughter alone after a divorce. I was/am grateful for my…
