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GANE Insight: Kim Jorgensen Gane's Blog

I'm no longer directionally challenged--I have a clear vision to celebrate #MOREin2014 via GANEPossible.com. Preempting my novel in progress, Bluebirds, I'm very close to releasing my first GANE Possible publication (prescriptive "Dr. Mom" nonfiction), Beating the Statistics: A Mother's Quest to Reclaim Fertility, Halt Autism & Help Her Child Grow From Behavior Failure to Behavior Success. I'm also working on completing my memoir, My Grandfather's Table: Learning to Forgive Myself First.

It took a lifetime to get here. This blog documents my quest to self-fulfillment through my writing, and ultimately to shifting my focus to Beating the Statistics & My Grandfather's Table and speaking about them. They are the wellness and the memoir parts of my journey that had to be told, so that Bluebirds can one day be the meaningful, but fictional *story* it aspires to be.

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BACK TO SCHOOL WITH A TWIST, or MIDLIFE WITH A SIDECAR

8/20/2013

5 Comments

 
Picture
I heard Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook and author of, Lean In, speak at BlogHer ’13 last month, and I must admit to being surprised at how much I identified with her message.  The question the Lean In campaign asks each of us is,  “What could you do if you weren’t afraid?”  I’ve lived my life afraid for as long as I can remember, and I’d venture to say my husband has, too.  He’s run and relocated to the next corporate job because he was afraid of losing the last one.  I’ve written my whole life, but fear of failure as well as fear of success prevented me from sharing anything I’d written until I began blogging just over two years ago.

“They” say the definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting different results.  I guess my husband and I have been a little insane for going on the last twenty-one years.  When the inevitable challenge has presented us with the same obvious choices, we’ve gone with our usual response, until now.  This would be easier to grin and bear if we weren’t both at the same time attempting to make a midlife change to our knee-jerk response to life’s struggles, all while providing for a young child still at home.  
Every time I find myself not able to breathe or with a screaming headache, I try to understand and accept that it is taking all my husband has not to chase the easy money--for his American male, fifty-something work ethic not to risk another likely corporate disappointment, running on that hamster wheel.  We’re former Joneses in witness protection, only there’s no per diem. For my strapping 6’2” former firefighter/paramedic/police officer not to do what he’s always done--compromise his own happiness to feed us--but instead to marinate in this place where for the first time the actual possibility of failing to provide a roof over our heads does, too, is akin to taking a hot poker to his nether regions, something Corporate America has done enough.  Instead he’s limping along with his heart not quite in consulting as he builds a photography business on the side and dreams of having a food truck.  Things I want for him perhaps more than he wants them for himself.

Every fiber of my old self wants to run out and wait tables, tend bar, go back to being a miserable administrative assistant, or to throw together a hasty garage sale, even though everything I’ve done over the last two years has told me to keep writing, that I’m on the right path, that this me I’ve finally come back to is the me I was meant to be all along.  So instead, I’m composing this post from my new writers studio in a hip, lofty old factory turned (thankfully ridiculously cheap) artists’ Mecca, where I’ll focus on finishing my novel, and take the earnest leap to query and submit my writing for paid publication.

Our 500 thread-count sheets no longer possess the elastic wherewithal to remain tucked, and almost neither do I.  I try to be comforted knowing we still have friends with a big basement and even bigger hearts, and that we’re in this together.  We’ve been back home in Michigan where we belong for a year now, and where we have much easier access to our aging parents and married daughters.  This has been one of the longest summers in our history, but the ability to conduct our midlife crises nearer the support of friends and family has to be the only thing that truly counts right now.  

We will get through this, and come out the other side, hopefully having been rewarded and having taught our children to make choices that lead them to fulfilling lives much earlier than we did, even if today I wonder whether Ramen™ is available yet gluten free.

Maybe our son will always remember 5th grade as the year he had no new school clothes and carried a recycled backpack (hey, it’s a Jansport™, those things are guaranteed for life, right?), but hopefully he will also remember it as the year his parents eventually got it right.  This is the year we embraced the thrill ride of finding out who each of us is, instead of caving-in to what the Joneses would have done, even if neither of us has any fingernails left.  I’m calling it, 
Midlife with a Sidecar, where we’re all three taking the turns and holding on for dear life.  
5 Comments
The Hubby
8/20/2013 03:05:33 pm

Thanks for "painting the picture with words" about my nether regions. It made me sit down and cross my legs and whimper (just slightly) like most men would do when reading this. Don't forget we can always use coupons and my AARP card :)
Good post dear. XOXO

Reply
Kim Jorgensen Gane link
8/20/2013 03:32:35 pm

Sorry about your nethers, dear, and thanks for visiting AND COMMENTING!! A momentous occasion, indeed! I love you and your nethers.

Reply
Walker Thornton link
8/21/2013 02:09:31 am

You express what many people go through, only they aren't able or willing to be open about it. It's difficult waiting and hoping that the right thing really is the right thing. And, I applaud you for seeing what is needed and pursuing that. I have had similar experiences--it is scary as hell, but the alternative isn't very palatable.

Reply
Kim Jorgensen Gane link
8/21/2013 06:25:35 am

Walker! Bless you for visiting, and for your kind and compassionate comment. It took me a long time to write this, because we're told to put on a smile and go about life pretending everything is rosy, particularly where money troubles are concerned. But if I tell others that the magic of writing lives in that secret place where honesty and authenticity does too, but I'm not doing that myself, how can I hope to produce anything magical at all? More than anything, I want my work to feel honest and real, because you're exactly right: the alternative isn't very palatable at all. Thank you again, Walker.

Reply
Belinda C link
2/25/2021 01:44:49 am

Niice post

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    Write2TheEnd | 

    Kim Jorgensen Gane

    Author|Award-Winning Essayist|Freelance CommercialWriter|GANE
    Empowered Wellness Advocate, Facilitator, Speaker

    Kim is a freelance writer, living and working on Michigan’s sunset coast with her husband, youngest son, a standard poodle and a gecko. She’s been every-mom, raising two generations of kids over twenty-seven years. Kim writes on a variety of topics including parenting  through midlife crisis, infertility, health and wellness, personal empowerment, politics, and about anything else that interests her, including flash fiction and her novel in progress, Bluebirds.  Oh, and this happened!

    Kim was selected as a BlogHer '13 Voices of the Year Honoree in the Op Ed category for this post, an excerpt of which has been adapted for inclusion in the book, 51%: Women and the Future of Politics, to be released late 2014.  Visit her Wordpress About page to see her CV.
    View my profile on LinkedIn
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*GANEPossible.com is an anecdotal website and in no way intends to diagnose, treat, prevent or otherwise influence the medical decisions of its readers. I am not a doctor, I do not recommend going off prescribed medications without the advice and approval of a qualified practitioner, and I do not recommend changing your diet or your exercise routine without first consulting your doctor. These are merely my life experiences, and what has and hasn't worked for me and my family. You must be your own best medical advocate and that of your children, and seek to find the practitioner with whom you have the best rapport and in whose advice and care you can entrust your health and medical decisions.


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I Blog with Integrity, please treat my content with integrity: Copyright © 2020, Kimberly Jorgensen Gane, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License..