Lisa's Life After 50

John Lennon/ Allen Saunders

I was hoping that blogging would flow easily, but it hasn’t. Beyond a busy life, figuring out how to blog is a job! I can’t seem to get my ideas out in a way that I like and it’s frustrating. When I think about it, it seems that’s how life goes. It rarely works like we hope but if we’re lucky it works out for the best. So, maybe this is growing pains. I’ve tried to plan my life in so many ways but it sure hasn’t turned out the way I’ve planned. Is it better this way? I hope so…

I’ve been busy making vacation plans for my amazing youngest God-daughter, since she will be graduating High School, also with an Associates from college. (All my God-daughters are amazing and I am so proud of them.) And for my birthday, the wonderful 51. I’ve been working extra for these plans and to save up to invest in real estate. A dream I’ve had for a long time. During all this planning so much has happened. I’ve lost friends to crazy accidents, terrible diseases, and unfortunately to differences in opinion. Loss and grief are real. Something I’ve learned a lot about in the last 5 years, and something I’m still learning. Though I know some cope better than others, it’s hard for anyone to cope with loss when it seems like the whole world is going crazy.

In the last month I’ve been trying to keep up with the crazy events happening in our nation and the world. It’s not easy, and I think no matter what your views are, it’s making people more angry and negative than ever. Which, makes it harder to discuss and find better ways of handling our lives, our government, and world affairs. We already have a mental health crisis. This atmosphere is adding to it. I fear that more than ever, people are turning to violence in every area of life. From social media to home life to public life and in business. Workplace violence is up in so many areas. I, of course, follow healthcare because I work in it and workplace violence is ever increasing. Nurses, doctors, and other staff are regularly threatened, harmed, and the increase in deaths related to workplace violence in healthcare is astonishing. Why? Healthcare workers want to help people. We are noted as the most compassionate, trustworthy, advocates for human kind. (I’m not including insurance companies in this group.) Do people think healthcare workers are somehow failing them? Wronging them? Doing harm instead of having their health in their best interest? I wish I knew. I wish I knew the whys of many questions. I wish we could discuss these whys without negativity, hate, and demeaning language. I know we have freedom of speech, but people forget that responsibilities come with all our rights. And that using one persons rights to infringe on another persons rights is a wrong. That’s what our justice system is for, but it seems to be failing us as well. All the negativity, violence, lack of equal voice, is leading to more division. Sadly, it benefits one group of people and they are growing in power. Soon, I fear, we will no longer be the land of the free, home of the brave but a land of “state control of economic activity and mass media, restrictions on freedom of religion, and suppression of opposition and dissent”, Wikipedia. You can look that up…

I’m hoping that my plans for life, or whatever becomes of my plans, works out best for me. I hope that plans work out for the best for everyone. Perhaps they won’t work out the way they planned, but for the best. Who knows maybe it will lead to a better world eventually. We may not see it now, but hopefully we will see it someday.