The Jobless Goddess

I’m not sure anyone else has noticed this, but apparently what used to be 210 pounds in 2010 looks a lot like 240 pounds in 2016. I think I might be melting too. Naturally, I have many pairs of the same pants I wore comfortably at this same weight six years ago. Today, I have to lay on the bed to zip them, and then I have the inevitable waistband fold all day. And I’m thinking I should be proud of myself because I can wear the same pants.  Oh, I can, but with a couple of glitches. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll put a bobby pin in the zipper to yank it up if I have to. It’s just that I can remember them being loose at this same weight six years ago. Apparently everything has been redistributed or something, or I am truly melting. That puddle under the Wicked Witch of the West got much wider after she melted. Why I can’t look like Glinda, Good Witch of the North, is beyond me.  I spend thirty minutes on the elliptical nearly every day of the week, and if I so much as look...

I’ve had quite the week. Not much was accomplished but I had what I like to label some “experiences.” When we moved from Syracuse to Martha’s Vineyard almost four years ago, I felt like changing everything. I gave up a job that I had loved for almost 16 years; I was editor at a Catholic newspaper and nobody has that kind of job stability anymore. But hey, why not pack up and move to an island when you’re just shy of your 50th birthday? The mantra in my head kept repeating “If you don’t do this now, you’ll never leave.” So we left.  Obviously one question mark was what kind of job would I find on Martha’s Vineyard. I wasn’t sure I wanted to work at a newspaper. I’d done it for nearly half my life by that point and since I was willing to uproot our lives, I thought why not go all the way and try a completely different job.  For years I’ve thought that being a lunch lady would be an ideal job for me: I love kids, I love food, I love “mother’s hours....