Beginning again

Today, I am beginning again to write the blog that’s inside my head. So much has happened, so many changes in my life happened so suddenly and so few friends who could share them.

I don’t know why I picked today, but here we are. I’m in the middle of a long process of recreating my life and sorting out what needs my focus in the present, and to plan – finally, for the future.

As a self-employed professional photogrpher (PPA Certified) back in Santa Fé, I had a decision at the end of the year: do I want to pay my self-employment taxes or do I want to buy another piece of expensive black plastic? You know the answer to that question before you even finished the sentence!

What that lead to is today. I retired with $289 income from Social Security per month. It wasn’t a lot then. It’s even less now. The one thing I did was to count the months until my death and then multiply the amount per month time the number of months. The lower about was the larger total. I took it.

How did I know my death date? I didn’t, exactly. But I have a good idea. I had been married to Judi (Dee) for almost 30 years. She was an exceptional human being, wife, mother, partner, and friend – in many ways. An “expert intuitive” is the term she preferred, so I will use it to describe her also.

Of course she was much more than that, but that’s for other posts on other days. For now, I will just say that I was told how long we both would live. She would live to 75 and I would live to 89. She died at 75.

My son also died.