When we first made the decision to sell our home and start a life of FT RVing, people all said “That is my dream!” or “You are living the dream!” WE accomplished that dream. It took approximately 45 days to sell our house in 2017 and almost everything we owned was sold, donated, or left behind with the house. Our families hung onto a few precious items for us, but we did not store anything. We successfully downsized and the plan was 3-5 years to travel and also search for a small retirement place to call home for our golden years.

Three years went by. We are here. We are home in Florida. I am officially retiring this month. My first check will arrive in April/May time frame. I was going to wait a few more years, but the time seems right and life is short. Perhaps the Pandemic made that more clear for me, or perhaps I’m just tired of waiting. Regardless, I AM RETIRING.

It’s a very odd feeling for me. There will be no retirement party at the office because there is no office. There hasn’t been an office since the recession when I lost my Job with a Luxury Jewelry Company. They were based out of Italy and took the Company public on the Milan stock exchange in November 2007. I was told it would be a “good thing” for us. I received a phone call in December and was downsized right out of my job for Christmas. For the first time in my life, I was unemployed in January 2008, just like so many others during those unbelievable years of the Great Recession. The domino affect began for me and there was no stopping it.

Since I had made a good living in the world of Luxury wholesale, I never missed a payment on anything in my life and was suddenly prioritizing what to pay and what to let ride while collecting $350 per week. I owned a rental property and two homes. One house I had just built and moved into barely a year before the recession. The 2nd house (my previous residence) was under contract as a “lease to own.” The 3rd house I purchased as a rental and was occupied by my son and his family. Both my son and my lease tenant lost their jobs and left me holding the bag of past due house payments. It was only a matter of time before the last domino fell. I was divorced and nearly homeless. It slaps you in the face so hard that you can never forget it.

You hear it many times that we are ALL only six months or so away from being homeless when you lose a substantial income job. I managed my money very well and hung on for 2 years, but the inevitable foreclosure was headed straight for me like hurricane Irma getting bigger and bigger and navigating a path straight towards me in 2017! (Narrowly escaped that one while in our RV parked in Pensacola!)

As instructed by my attorney, I waited to move out of my house until the last hour of reality struck. The dire situation finally blasted me off my keister when I found a job, and yet, the courts were not willing to work with my substantially lower income and were proceeding with Sherriff’s sale of my home. Lucky for me (that is a laughable statement!), I had sold both rentals (short sales, and NOT an easy task!). So I packed up my stuff in my friend’s Harley Davidson trailer and several other friend’s pick up trucks, and moved into an apartment one day, and filed bankruptcy the next! I lived to tell this story, but the toll it took on my life was severe. I lost all my savings (remember, 2 years with 3 homes and never qualified for assistance of any kind!) The banks were humiliating and nasty! If you had a car, you did not need help in anyone else’s eyes. I qualified for $16.00 a month in food stamps. YES! Sixteen dollars per month! But if I had waited till I was carless and homeless, I could have got over $200/month! I said “No, thank you” and never asked for help again. I completely used up my shrinking 401K thinking that the next great job was just around the corner! But it never was. I lost nearly a million dollars in assets (in present time, not recession time). I was alone. I felt suicidal at times and never shared that with anyone, not even my family. I was living in an apartment after building my dream home barely making it paycheck to paycheck. Not quite what I imagined when I said I had planned my life out well and looked forward to retiring early at age 55. Nope. Not what I imagined at all. And trust me, I spared you the details of how rotten I was treated by financial institutions that were tying to collect money I no longer had…So when I say I understand what people who are jobless and on the brink of disaster over the past year of this Covid Crisis are going thru, I actually do!

But if you live to tell, you still have everything. Really, you do!

Fast Forward, because I already explained how I met my current husband back in October 2010 in a previous blog, and we began a life of traveling and new adventures. I was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia (sudden severe and shocking pain in one side of the face- eye, ear & jaw) in 2009, and general anxiety disorder in 2010. I wasn’t sure how I could deal with either one of these things, let alone with both of them. People kept telling me I would make it thru all of this because I was such a strong woman. That is a crock of sh!t when you’re living a nightmare. So if you find yourself giving out this sort of advice, spare the person your speech and tell them instead to seek help from a professional. If you really want to help them, pay for a visit or two if they can’t afford it or qualify for assistance! Even strong people can fall and I have known several that have. But somehow I did survive. I’m sharing this information because not everyone is willing to share it and some people don’t make it. I was lucky.

I made it! The girl that was afraid of everything was trying new things! I was crossing scary high bridges; both on foot and in the RV! (pictured below: Grandfather’s Mountain, NC, Mackinac Bridge, MI)

We drove over the ocean in our RV to live in Key West for the winters. I’ve been on crazy winding high roads out in the wild wild West! (pictured above: Seven Mile Bridge, Key West and US Route 89, traveling Wyoming.) I have been to the Field of Dreams. What more can I say?!

My husband served his country for almost 22 years, survived Vietnam, and luckily, came home in one piece. We considered ourselves both lucky and now we have lived during a worldwide Pandemic without getting sick, as of this moment. We have spent endless hours and days isolated from friends and family watching our economy and democracy on the brink of collapse. Hubby is now fully vaccinated and I have shot #1 down and #2 to go. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I meet my Sister from another Mother every Wednesday for coffee outdoors. We talk and we laugh and we have survived. She is the person that found an appointment for me at a military base (very difficult to get shot appts here in Florida), and in my eyes, she may have saved my life! She knows who she is and I say “THANK YOU!”

I have lived to tell my story.

So my question is; what exactly does retirement mean? I am really not sure since I’ve already “lived the dream” as so many once said. Our FT RV travels have ended just at the time so many plan to begin it. I have seen every state except for Hawaii, Alaska, and maybe Delaware. (I think I must have been in Delaware at some point but I sure don’t remember it.) I have been to Switzerland and took a train thru the Swiss Alps to Italy. I have a very grateful heart. I’ve done so much more than many ever do, and far less than some. So my plan for now is not to have a plan, since most of those plans never really work out the way you planned anyhow. LOL!! So next month will be just like this one for the most part, only better. I will be fully vaccinated against Covid, I have a roof over my head, food to eat, a pool in my backyard, and a paycheck to enjoy it! Family is planning a visit soon. I hope to finally reap the rewards of owning our little piece of heaven in paradise. I hope to wake up in the morning and say, “I love my life!” once again, as I used to say so often.

HAPPY RETIREMENT TO ME!

*Please feel free to share your retirement dreams and ideas with me in the comment section of my blog! I do read them and look forward to it!

**The caricature photo I use as my Blogsite photo was actually done while I was in Puerto Rico for a National Sales meeting with Movado Group. Here is the actual photo with the artist’s name.

Lately, I have been experiencing difficulty writing. After selling our motorhome and purchasing our retirement home in Florida, I no longer wish to spend all my time writing about the satirical adventures of travel and expensive repairs. In fact, after moving into our house 10 months ago, we have had no repairs until just last week. The toilet in the Master Bath was acting up and it was cheaper to replace it than to repair it. End of story. Now, truth be known, if we were still living the FT dream of RV life, I could have written this entire blog about a leaky toilet issue that would have been both funny and expensive. But in less than 24 hours and $299 later, no story to tell about the brand new toilet in our MB! So, in other news…

I am not into the “Royal Family” news and gossip, but I did watch the interview that Oprah Winfrey did with Meghan Markle & Prince Harry yesterday while doing laundry. I caught it hours later on Demand TV and was very curious after seeing some really nasty comments on Facebook after it aired Sunday night. There was a time in the early 80’s during the Prince Charles & Diana fairytale wedding that I was totally into it! But in the later years after watching how the press turned Diana’s life as a Royal into a living nightmare (not to mention the fact, Charles was having an affair with Camilla and nearly drove Diana crazy!) I started despising what the Paparazzi did to her and basically responsible for her death in 1997. But who didn’t love Lady Di?!

Much of the chitter chatter on social media Monday morning consisted of people targeting criticisms toward these two people for telling their side of a sad story of how the British media, once again, destroyed a Royal Family fairytale. And add in some family dysfunction with the confetti of racism falling all over them for additional heartbreak, and you’ve got a story for a curious and condemning audience. But wait! There’s more! Did you hear the part where she talked about not wanting to live and having suicidal thoughts? That is nothing to make light of whether you care about the Royals or not, and quite shocking to me that people poked fun of it! More disgusting was that the folks on Fox 8 would have lynched Meghan if they could have!

I personally believe that Meghan was seriously targeted by the press in a way that would make almost any woman want to run away and hide. But I am baffled by the response and severe criticisms by the majority. Remember, Royals can’t just grab the car keys, jump into a car and go cry with a best friend or get drunk at the nearest bar! Who was there to witness what really happened to her? And furthermore, to laugh about it and suggest she knew what she was getting into. What commoner (as in, no royal bloodline- not how much money you have) in the US has married a Royal and personally knows exactly what to expect or what’s happened to Meghan and Harry? Who is so cruel that you would condemn someone who experienced suicidal thoughts regardless of why?

If you could care less about the Royals, then turn your attention to our own current realities of life. We are in a critical situation right here in our country, right now. People have simply lost touch with how to be understanding, empathetic, or kind to others. I have never seen anything quite like it in my almost 62 years of life. I see people post memes every single day stating things like; “Don’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes” or “You have no idea what people are dealing with in their personal lives so just be nice”, and “Sometimes the people with the biggest smiles are struggling the most.” Does anyone care enough to try practicing what they preach or post? One of my personal favorites is “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I try to practice this whenever I find myself quick to judge, and lately I find myself thinking it a lot!

My take away from this interview is that our society is in critical condition.

I have experienced suicide in my extended family. Once long ago, and again in 2020. It is one of the most tragic life experiences the family members which are left behind will ever suffer and faced with questions that will never be answered. They will never understand the reason, yet have to push forward with their own life and their family’s lives. I think of them often when I hear people say “You need to get over it” or “life goes on.”

When did our society become so heartless? Do you find this disparaging or are you one of the heartless?

The reason why I’m having such a hard time writing these days is that, as I’ve said before, I am a peacekeeper. I don’t like confrontation because my feelings are easily hurt. I consider myself an Empath and I find it difficult to build up a protective wall around me. But I’m going to say what I need to say and hope that anyone that’s reading this might let the words sink in. There has been a lack of empathy and far too many hypocrisies and bullying going on for far too long, and if we keep turning our heads and ignoring it, your children and your grandchildren will become victims, or worse, the perpetrators.

STOP condemning people and save the judging for when you’re actually sitting on a jury. Don’t you realize that the person you are lashing out at today might be the person ready to end their life before dinner? The friend you think you know very well might be seeing a psychiatrist tomorrow and too ashamed to speak of it. The guy standing next to you might be suffering from PTSD and too scared to tell anyone because of the stigma associated with it and ready to kill someone. The neighbor you dislike could be a recovering addict and seemingly not very friendly. The person you invited to a small gathering that you believe is Paranoid Patty may be scared to death during this pandemic. The post you made this morning that you didn’t fact check first may prevent someone from getting vaccinated because it stated vaccines kill people!

I know people with PTSD. I know people struggling with addiction. I have friends seeking mental health help. I know people that were barely sick with Covid-19, and some who died or still struggling to live. What I don’t know, is why so many people are quick to judge others. Even worse, to make fun of them! We are all human and we all make mistakes. But try building someone up instead of tearing them down. Lend someone an ear or a virtual shoulder to cry on. Be the reason someone wants to live another day- not the reason today was their last day on earth!

We all know in our heart of hearts that it is ethically and morally wrong to lie, cheat and steal. So stop supporting those that do. We also know that the only way to change anything is to accept that something is wrong and needs to change. We all know that the current direction of society is in need of change, so accept the things you cannot change, and be the start of something that you do have the power to change. YOU. Start there. Wake up with a kinder heart and bring a little joy to someone’s day, if only a small compliment or a simple thank you.

I’ll start. THANK YOU FOR READING MY BLOG. I APPRECIATE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU AND HAVE A GREAT DAY!