DW Community Catch-up Thread
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I read Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo with my book club last summer. I liked it! More of a memoir person, though. I didn’t know that Taylor Jenkins Reid is the author until you mentioned it, @Vathena — I just got my next book club read from the library yesterday evening and it’s another one of her books, Carrie Soto Is Back.
I just got off a large-scale meeting with 100+ participants. Someone (from an outside org) must’ve been going through a drive-thru and ordered a “chocolate shake, extra thick” in the middle of something one of our directors was saying. LOL!
ETA: I did like I’m Glad My Mom Died if anyone is looking for a book rec. I wasn’t sure I’d like the whole audiobook experience, so I picked a book I was curious enough about but didn’t care whether or not I got the experience of reading it… I listened the whole thing in a day. (Trigger warnings: abuse and EDs.)
Oh, I love this idea.
My updates are kind of a bummer, but there’s growth there.
My mom passed last November a day after her 70th birthday and it’s been a lot to process. I miss her so much. Always. Every day. She’d been happy and healthy until she had a car wreck 18 months before she passed. And her body just…couldn’t keep up.
The loss of my mom had fundamentally changed me in ways I never expected. And I’m one of the first in out friend circle to lose a parent in adulthood. I feel like an outsider amongst my friends because they don’t know what to say.
I’m not even sure how to articulate it. But I’ll love to know how others have dealt with this stage of life.
And I have a therapist and she’s great and helping, but it’s hard.
Oh, miss mj, I’m so sorry. Sending you a hug and good thoughts.
I don’t have experience with losing a parent yet so I don’t have any real advice to offer. Take gentle care of yourself and come here if you want to reminisce or vent or let your mind rest, whatever you need to do!
I’m so sorry, MJ! I haven’t lost a parent but Drew has lost both his parents – his mom when he was still a kid and his dad about 7 1/2 years ago. From my vantage point, it’s a big process to grieve that loss and come to feeling some peace with it. And the process isn’t linear. Take all the time you need. There’s no way to the other side but through it. But there is another side. 💜
Aww I love that this thread has been going for so long! I am also in serious need of book recommendations, I just finished the last Thursday Murder Club novel in anticipation of the new one coming out in the fall, they’re a fun, light beach read if anyone is looking.
In not-so-great news, I was part of the wave of tech layoffs this spring and lost my dream job. I was extremely lucky to have a number of offers within a few weeks of the layoff, but I’ve been feeling lukewarm about the one I ended up accepting. So Copa I feel you on the pain of interviewing for a job you really hoped would at least be an option, only to have it evaporate. I figure I’ll give this one a few more months before deciding what to do – might be time to wade back into the circus.
In good news, I’m getting married next month in Hawaii. With an airtight prenup after the abject misery that was my divorce from my ex husband. But to a man who is really, truly a wonderful person and a genuinely good partner. Overall my life is so much more peaceful and joyful than I could have ever imagined before the pandemic. We’re both in our late 30s and unsure about kids – earlier in my life I never doubted I would be a mom, but I’m starting to feel my age a little and I’m not sure whether it’s in the cards for us. We’ll probably try for a period of time and if it doesn’t happen, it wasn’t meant to be.
MJ, I am so sorry to hear about your mom. 70 is too young for a parent to leave us. I can only imagine how hard this is and I hope you can get to a place where the grief is not so constant, though it will always be there.
MJ – I’m so sorry. My dad died at 57, and my grief lasted months, mostly because it was so sudden and all the things were left unsaid. In one month it will be 20(!) years and there are still moments when I miss him and wish I could call him. But it does get easier and those moments are further apart.
@Golfer.gal – that sucks. I’m lucky in that two people left my organization leaving a vacuum in my area. They can’t afford to lose me right now. One of the more senior guys was like “You’re not going anywhere right?” and I was like “Nope, need a few more years to retirement, you are safe.”
Yay @golfer.gal. Have so much fun!!! Congratulations.
I just had my breasts compressed and now waiting for an ultrasound. Fun times.
It was time for my annual mammogram, but I also have a pretty big lump. I think it’s the same one that turned out to be a cyst about 7 years ago, but two periods ago, it got bigger and harder. I’m sure hormones. Fun times.
@MissMJ I’m so sorry! I don’t have experience with losing a parent, but sometimes I think about what it will be like when (specifically) my mom passes — we are close, she is one of my favorite people ever — and always think the world will be a totally different place after. I can only imagine how difficult it is.
Congratulations @golfer.gal! A wedding in Hawaii sounds fabulous. (And yay for prenups! If I do ever choose to get married, there will be a prenup!)
@ktfran I actually wrote in on this site years ago freaking out after my doctor found a lump. I’d just turned 30, which meant NWM wouldn’t let me get just an ultrasound even though that’s all my doctor thought I needed preliminarily. So I got my first mammogram. Mine turned out to be a benign tumor. And I had/have way more than just one, only the one was palpable. I remember them describing it like a marble under a rug, where they can feel really big if they’re close to the surface. It can be nerve wracking waiting to find out what’s going on, but hopefully it continues to be nothing serious!
I’m so sorry MJ. Sending you love. I just heard from my friend (mid 30s) that his mom who has cancer is being transferred from the hospital to palliative.
Congrats on the wedding @golfergal!!
In terms of books, I read Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. I haven’t read her earlier books like Little Fires Everywhere. I didn’t love it so I wouldn’t recommend it necessarily, so not helpful haha.
I grew up thinking I would like a family but never felt “motherly”. I figured the feeling would just come. My husband and I said we would wait a year after the wedding before starting to try. My husband does want kids and we did talk about it before getting married. A few months ago I did kind of freak out of the reality of it all but worked through it. I think it was worry about the unknown. I also went off BC and weaned off some medication so that’s kind of been up and down.
Partly at play is I am not happy at work and while it took me more time than I should have I realize I don’t see my future where I am. However I also don’t exactly know where to go. I have some idea but I don’t know if that’s actually a good fit. We decided that I would take the next couple months or the summer to figure out what I want in a job before starting to try. So there is some pressure about fertility being in my mid 30s but we will take it as it comes.
Congrats on the wedding, golfer gal!
I’ve read both Our Missing Hearts and Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, and I liked Little Fires way better, fyi. If I’d read Our Missing Hearts first, I probably wouldn’t have read anything else by Ng, which would be a shame because she’s an excellent writer.
