On Becoming Unbecoming

I've spent 70 years of my life "becoming." It's been a journey that has been eye-opening, to say the least. Over the years, I've become numerous things: Student, teacher, media person, writer, wife (third time's the charm with a wonderful husband of 30+ years), mother, caregiver, PR professional, friend, advocate, and occasional reluctant adversary. None of these things were what my mother used to call "a walk in the park." Each was a learning experience in becoming the person I am now - old - in the chronological sense. After all, age is simply a chronological dysfunction.

In spending so much time becoming what everyone expected, and what I demanded of myself, I lost something along the way. I lost the ability to look at my life in any terms other than what would be best described as PC. My job necessitated it; my life as the mother of an athlete in a judged sport demanded a certain level of decorum, though I wrote between the lines for nine years in my other blog "Life on the Edge of Skating," honing my humor (and sarcasm) along the way.

But when I retired on January 1, 2019, I realized that I needed to be unbecoming - not in the dictionary definition of the word, but in shedding some of the labels I had progressively put on myself for all my life. This blog will be my journey of unraveling and reconstructing so many things that have kept me bound to convention. I'm looking at life with a different perspective now; I'm finding a new voice that I hope will be just off-center enough to make you step back and say, "I can relate."

We'll see how it goes, this aging thing. It's a personal journey into uncharted territory; I can't use Google Maps for directions, so I'll work on setting my own path while taking you with me along the way. Only if you want to come, of course. It would be unbecoming of me not to invite you.