Elaine as onion

I don't actually recall meeting my friend Elaine. She remembers me from the pre-Covid days when our movie group met in person, but frankly, she made no impression on me at all back then. When our meet-ups moved to Zoom, we noticed one another's cats. When the Loop began opening up again, Elaine invited me to lunch and the rest, as they say, is history. She has become a big part of my life.

Elaine fascinates me because of the slow way she reveals herself. I know her as a 70-ish woman who, like me, is transitioning from the white collar world to retirement. Divorced, with cats and her own condo. A lover of classic film. So it's easy to see what we have in common.

But, like an onion, Elaine has layers. She lets major revelations about her past slip as though they are no big deal. Wednesday at lunch she casually mentioned that she battled thyroid cancer before we met. Huh? What?

Over time she's also told me about her lesbian love affair, after her divorce when she was confused and depressed. And her battle with bi-polar disorder, which is why she forcefully advises me against being an enabler to my oldest friend, who refuses therapy and doesn't stay on her meds. And how as a teen she entered a beauty pageant to please her mother but didn't take it seriously and came in second. And how she was a such a superstar student at Northwestern in statistics and data that they sent her to study abroad at Oxford (!) for a semester, but she dropped out to become a dancer anyway. And how her parents were so upset about her leaving Northwestern that they cut her off financially so she supported herself as a go-go dancer in Chicago nightclub. And how, when she was hitchhiking through the desert, she dissuaded some biker types from assaulting her by persuading them she was a Chinese mystic who could curse them for eternity.(My head is still swimming over that one.)

I look at the rather sedate lady sitting across from me as she shares these things and I wonder, "Who knew?" and "What else can she possibly have left to reveal?" Only something tells me there's lots more. 

  

Photo by See Kay on Unsplash

 

 

Gratitude Challenge – Day 10

I first took this challenge in November 2014 and I think now is a good time to revisit it. Click here for a list of the Gratitude Challenge prompts.

Day 10: Quiet I am defining this as "uneventful," and I'm grateful then for this quiet evening. The weather here has been humid and turbulent and I don't care for it. I had a productive shift at the store – we exceeded our sales goal and while that's a good thing, it means I was "on" for the whole time, which exhausts me. So I was happy to pick up an early dinner on the way home, lock the door, and stay put. Just me and the cats. Decompressing as we watch the weather, the Cub game (my heroes won!) and this week's classic film.