TETHERED NOMAD

 

In a couple of days, I turn 77…..how the hell did that happen!!

This journey of aging is very interesting.  It seems like yesterday that I was playing in the backyard of 237 North Broadway in Lebanon.  It was a neighborhood of kids my age that played together every day and had wonderful adventures of our own imagining.  I remember clearly the day in August 1957 when our family car was packed and ready to move to Florida.  I still remember looking out the back window of our Studebaker station wagon waving goodbye to those friends.  Never to see any of them again.

From there it was the wonderful adventure of moving to Florida, starting 4^th grade at Pinellas Park Elementary, then 5^th grade moving to Cross Bayou Elementary.  My closest neighbor was also named Sue Ellen, weird coincidence and making new friends through the Pinellas Park Presbyterian Church, some of whom to this day I still have a close friendship (Rik McNeill). 

Jr. high and high school was great fun and the whole ordeal of that first date that continued all the way through the beginning of my senior year still brings a grin to my face.  Also meeting my first really close friend, Nancy, with whom we were like sisters until her passing in April 2020.

I didn’t have plans to go to college or to get married, instead, on my own I returned to Ohio and began that independent life I always craved.  Five years in Cincinnati, then two in Fairbanks, AK and 10 months on Guam….I loved being an independent woman seeking out any adventure that came my way. Eventually I returned to Cincinnati, but always wandering one way or the other.  I think of myself as a Tethered Nomad. 

The wandering has taken me to all 50 states, and France, Scotland, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Canada. Since I lost my wandering buddy, Karen, to ALS in 2023, my wandering has definitely slowed down.  Also, aging is taking its toll slowly but surely.

However, this summer seems ripe for more travel.  2 trips to Florida for weddings, a week in Tennessee for our annual golf outing, 4 days in Bellingham, WA for a wonderful wedding celebration, and then hopefully in August to Bar Harbor, ME for a long over due visit with dear friends. 

So, looking at it as objectively as possible, I guess this aging thing isn’t so bad…..at least so far.  I’ll let you know how it goes!!!!