When did you feel the most like yourself?

When, thinking back over your life, were you the very best version of yourself?

This is me at 49, in January 2010, atop Mount Diablo, close to where I grew up near San Francisco, CA. The BF and I had just returned from a sailing vacation in the Bahamas when I found out my mom’s breast cancer had spread to her brain and that she had only a few months left to live.

I dropped everything and moved back to my parent’s house. I’m glad that I did. It was awful, and great, with lots of black humor, confusion and tears. My life however seemed crystal clear at this point. We were all focused on making my mom’s death the best it could be.

My mom died a week after this photo was taken.

I don’t know that I was the best version of myself, at this point, I don’t think I’ve changed versions much over the years.

Maybe that’s my problem!

BEST

The community, I’m on the fringe, but I’m okay with that

Learning about all of you weirdoes and following your life stories is pretty terrific, you are a fascinating bunch

I like that I have 10 years of snippets, inspiration, photos and what not all archived in one place - the early days of my archive are sure pretty

I love when I hit post and someone responds either in the comments or sends a message

I've learned SO MUCH while being on Tumblr on topics I didn’t even know that I didn’t even know.

LGBTQIAPK and shades of sexuality only guessed at, dissected into minute pieces and debated

I like being able to broaden or narrow my interests as they come and go by altering my following base

I used to run an animal blog - and I researched all the animals I posted about, it was such a great learning experience. I just loved doing that.

I’ve appeared on the radar a few times, that’s fun and you pick up a lot of followers. I was also the background photo for the log-in screen at one point which was a surprise

WORST

Having people I don’t follow show up in my feed and reappear indefinitely even when I click that I’m not interested

Relentless ads, and in my case always the same ad over and over

My sisters (and a few others) stalk my blog then contact me when they are unhappy, or contact each other to discuss what I’m doing. This is crazy if you follow my dreary life at all, I’m hardly posting salacious shit. A post about National Sibling Day has shown up lawsuit discovery materials, my sister didn’t like that I said our family fell apart when my mom died? My other sister questions my “need” for Truthful Tuesday - why must I lie the other days of the week? Why can’t I be honest every day of the week like other people? I’ve blocked them and made my Tumblr private which is so not how I’ve lived my life. I think it’s SO petty

I can’t openly post the real things that are impacting my life

For many of my years in NY I worked at the same section of Madison Avenue, and I stopped every morning and ordered my coffee and a bagel from the same deli. After awhile, the deli guys all know you by your order.

Five years after I moved to California, a friend asked me to fill in for him at our old job for a week. The first day I stopped into the deli and the guy took one look at me and yelled - “Coffee light, no sugar; Bagel lightly toasted with butter!”

Spot on.

EVERYTHING!

I have gone back to school for pottery classes, workout classes and am currently learning Spanish online via duolingo, in case I decide to go for a Peace Corp position again in the future. I love learning new things.

It would be fun to become a student again. It might be good to take a formal photographic lighting again, I don’t do a lot of studio work any more but I cold use a refresher course.

I’ve thought about getting a contractor’s license, and marketing home repairs  to women homeowners. We get SCREWED by contractors all of the time, folks who count on us now being able to determine what is involved in various repairs.

I don’t know.

I recently looked at a semester at sea program, when I realized that 'mature’ people can go too, but $30K is too spendy for me. :)