Living Out Loud volume 15: prêt-à-porter

Yesterday was picture day at Ian's day care. We were told to bring "fancy outfits" for the professional portraits. When I went home on Friday I really wasn't sure what we would put him in. Everything Ian wears is a hand me down or thrift store purchase and nothing at the moment fits the category of "fancy". If this was going to be a professional portrait, I wanted him to look sharp, or at least presentable. We briefly considered sending him in his Godzilla costume (99 cents at the thrift store!) but thought he might get too warm and the tail might be uncomfortable. Then I remembered his little blue jumper. My parents cleaned out their attic last fall and found a lot of old clothes up there. One item was an adorable baby blue set of overalls that my brother wore as a baby. They fit Ian perfectly. So he wore a 40-year-old outfit to school for his picture.

We can get emotionally attached to clothes. My mother is an extreme example, but she has saved tons of our clothes from our childhood. When I was digging through our own attic the other day, I found a box labeled "Rich shirts - SAVE" so we have our own memories squirreled away. I watched an Oprah episode the other day where she was cleaning out her closet and they said you should get rid of any clothing that has bad memories associated with it. I assume the opposite is also true, though, that we should keep ones that have good memories. How else would people have things to loan to brides as their "something borrowed"?

This brings me to our Living Out Loud topic for March. Tell us about one or more item of clothing (or jewelry or shoes) you have that has special meaning for you. Is it something that would be obviously sentimental to others like a wedding dress or would it be something that could be easily tossed like an old t-shirt? Where did it come from? Do you still wear it? Do you have any special plans for it (whether it be to fit back into it one day or to pass it on to a loved one)? Spring is coming and folks get the notion to weed out stuff from our closets and lives, but what are those things you'll be sure to keep?

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each issue above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I'm just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don't email me, I'm likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, April 4th (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

Last month I had several people ask if it was okay to participate. I can't stress enough that these projects are open to EVERYONE and it warms my heart with each entry I receive. So please, spread the good news about living out loud! I can't wait to see what you produce!

Recap of Living Out Loud volume 14: Gone fishin'

Ok, I have to brag on your all a bit. 15 entries! And five new participants! I'm not sure what possessed me to pick this topic but it was harder than I thought it would be. So to have so many of you take on the challenge means a lot. You all rock. With no further ado, let's check them all out: Heather's Going Fishing - Eventually I must say I felt a pang of jealousy over earning full health benefits when you retire. Health insurance has been this Big Deal for me and my chronic illness so to have that would be a big relief. And I applaud you for saving so early!

Jimmy's Early Retirement You are making the most of your situation and getting to do all those retirement things while you're still young. Again life is that thing that happens when you're making other plans. :)

Christina's Living out loud ... Planning for retirement when single has its own challenges. But it can be full of opportunities too! It takes a village, and all that.

Deb's Gone Fishin' I suck at not working too. And I also hate pagers.

Dwayne's Gone fishin.. You're right, we all know that guy who has so much without working for it while we're fishing all day and haven't caught squat. And I also love the hill analogy.

Peg's Whine With Your Egg I cringed reading about your husband's company. And I do agree that you can go home again.

Rachel's (Crunchy Turtle) Blue Mountain Dreams I love the idea of reinventing ourselves at several points in our lives. I'm a beach person myself more than the mountains, but I can see the joy in being near nature.

SuziCate's Gettin' the Heck Outa Dodge! As someone who spends all day with her spouse at work, I still say it would be great to have a business with Rich when we retire. Just so long as we weren't counting on it to actually pay bills.

Megan's Once upon a time people retired I wonder too if anyone will ever actually retire anymore. It's much more encouraging to think about starting things than finishing things anyways.

Rachel's (Tales of my 30s) Look into the future Ugh, don't even get me started on worry about the future with a chronic illness. And being a full-time writer is one of those scary dreams for me. So kudos for tackling all those topics.

Ruth's This is My One Life Best. Bulleted List. Ever. I also spent a good 20 minutes googling Machu Picchu.

Amy's I wouldn't have to work at all/I'd fool around and have a ball Yep, retirement is wasted on old people. :) Why can't we travel now while we're young?

Karal's This Little Dream 43 jobs? I'm on job number two since leaving college. We are so very different and yet so very much the same. Your retirement plan sounds pretty great to me.

Rich's Iced Dream Rich always teases that he never wins these LOLs, but I almost made an exception for him this month. He was the only person who had a concrete plan for what he wants to do when he retires. Sure others had general ideas but all with caveats (myself included) but his was simple. Now just to make it happen.

And my own Living in a moment

I picked Ruth's entry as the winner this month. If nothing else because when she had a four month break between jobs, her list of things she did didn't include "freak the fuck out!" like mine would. Maybe she just edited that part out. Regardless, I loved the list of things she did and I like the idea of tasting parts of retirement throughout our lives. She will receive a $20 Amazon gift card as her prize and I thank her for taking the plunge as one of our new participants!

Talking about what to do when we're old can be depressing, but you all really rallied. And with these "tough economic times" a lot of people's nest eggs can seem pretty skimpy. But it's good to ponder all the chapters of our lives no matter how far off they may seem. I look forward to hearing from you all again with our next month's theme so we can revel in the chapters we're in right now a little.

Living in a moment

"And when they carve my stone all they need to write on it was once lived a man who got all he ever wanted. Tell me something. Who could ask for more than to be living in a moment you would die for?"- Ty Herndon

Why do I make Living Out Loud topics that I then have a hard time writing about? I have no one to blame but myself.

I was just telling my therapist Gary on Friday that I'm feeling comfortable living in the now. He did that therapist thing where he says, "it's good to see you like this, Genie." But it is good to see myself like this. I've been a planner and a fretter my whole life, always worrying about what the future may hold. I see it in my father now too where he not only worries about the uncertainly of the future but laments decisions from the past when there's nothing that can be done about them. I don't want to worry about what my life will be like in 30 years. It will probably be nothing like what I can imagine.

I don't know many retired people. Mom and Dad are 72 and 68 and are both still working. Rich's parents are retired but between all their own medical ailments and Uncle Tommy's, it seems like they spend as much time at doctor's appointments as we do at work. It's like retirement is wasted on old people.

I've thought about this more now that we have a new member of the family who's just starting out his life path. When my mother had us kids she looked at all the other mothers who stayed home and rocked babies. Daddy told her that he was sorry she couldn't stay home and rock babies but they needed her to work. So they both worked, Mom nights and weekends and Dad during the day (and weekends too), and we still got rocked. When I turned up pregnant, Mom talked about retiring so she could finally stay home and rock babies. But here she is still working and we're paying $850 a month for very nice Hispanic ladies to rock our baby. Even if Mom did retire now, I'm not sure if she could keep up with an active baby at her age with congestive heart failure. Our front porch steps give her hell.

So with my parents as a model, should I think about what I will be doing in those last chapters of my life, when I'm not even sure how long the novel will be and what kind of energy I'll have? Maybe the story of my life should be more like a choose your own adventure book where you can jump all around from page to page based on what decisions you make in the moment. Mom is much more tired these days than when she was 21 with her first baby, but this grandson has reopened a whole new part of her life. She's singing songs and using pet phrases I haven't heard in decades. Giddy up, giddy up into town. Watch out, little boy, dontcha fall down.

I also wonder if retirement isn't necessarily the point when you're no longer working, but the point when you're no longer putting up with other people's bullshit. Like the pithy signs in Cracker Barrel say, work would be great if it weren't for all those customers (where you can substitute customers for co-workers, bosses, colleagues, interns, etc.).

I assume at some point I'll stop working full-time. I'd like to have a ton of pets. I'd like to work at a coffee shop that has regulars I can chat with every week. I'd like to write more. I'd like to sew more. I don't think I would care to travel that much. Maybe a trip once a year. I'd like to rock babies.

Looking at my life now it isn't that different than what it would be 30 years from now. We already have a ton of pets. We're those regulars at the coffee shop chatting with the workers (our coffee gal is having her ultrasound on Wednesday to see if she's having a boy or girl). I do a fair amount of writing, but could stand to do more. I do a little bit of sewing, but could stand to do more. We make about one or two major trips a year. And I rock a baby every day.