Oh, Darling Ones,

Today is my 53rd birthday and boy is it being a god-damned day.

My 26-year-old washing machine decided to give up on life, and so my gift from the universe is a busted washer full of dirty water and clothes. Happy birthday, Dear Jodi!

Everything I touched today has turned to shit — I spilled a 40oz glass of ice water on my lap, a bathroom cleaner I ordered leaked all over the toothpaste in the same order, and this here website took a dive and I got spend a lot of time chatting with tech support. Happy birthday, Dear Jodi!

As a gift to myself I’ve decided not to freak out even though a new washer is not in my budget. Nothing is in my budget. Social Security has not let me on the dole yet and I’ve only made $50 thus year according to FreshBooks. So, I guess in the immortal words of Wilma Flintstone & Betty Rubble, I will CHARGE IT!

It’s only money.

I don’t make a big deal out of my birthday anymore, but I still love it.

I’ve heard from all my favorite people. I got to tell them I love them or show them by remembering anniversaries and discussing rock & roll. I had a delicious BBQ dinner with my fam and after my nephew & mom dealt with the washer mess. I have lots of yarn, cute cats, Bob’s Burgers on the TV, and a good book (Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson) waiting for me at bedtime.

Not too shabby for old Jodi. Plus, I’m here. I did not succumb to all that ails me like the dumb washing machine.

Hope 6/6 was good to you too.

Jodi

The post The Birthday That Wouldn’t Quit appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hello Darling Ones,

Today is my birthday! I made it to 52. Today also marks 15 months since my stroke. And, if we’re marking anniversaries, 12 months since I did the hardest thing I ever had do — ask for financial help.

It would be glorious if I could report one year later that things were absolutely splendid. That I’ve fully recovered physically, emotionally, and financially from the stroke.

That is not the case. Stroke recovery is a frustratingly long process filled with dips, valleys, and plateaus. I often complain to my physical therapist how unfair it is that the stroke damaged me an instant and recovery isn’t just as quick. She always reminds me recovery can take years and I will get better as long as I keep trying.

So, it’s a year later and I’m still doing the hard things. I had a significant set back in February, which has made the hard things harder. And this week I’ve had some vision problems which makes the hard things harder and also blurry!

But. . . I still get to do the hard things and I’m so happy to have that opportunity.

Fifty-one was my most difficult year yet. It was also the most gratifying, love-filled, joyous year. And I finally finished the Catghan that I started before my stroke!

The continued support from my family, friends, and community brings me to tears every time I think of it.

You all give me the strength to do hard things and I am honored.

Love,
Jodi

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Hi Darling Ones,

Today is my birthday! I’m 51. Today also marks three months since the stroke that upended my life.

Not to be a total downer, but I’m glad I’m done being 50. It was not a banner year for me. I had a stroke. My Dad died. My uncle Danny died. A lot of other bad stuff happened, but this isn’t about my avalanche of woe.

This is about doing hard things.

In the days and weeks following my stroke I was fond of shouting, “WHY CAN’T ANYTHING EVER BE EASY?” I said it a lot, because everything is so hard. Getting a cup of water. Walking to the bathroom. Going to bed. Everything is hard, and it’s made even harder by my floppy scoops

Yesterday I spilled an entire 24 ounces of iced cold brew coffee on the kitchen floor. This was coffee I cold brewed myself. It was all iced and Cinnamon Toast Crunch creamed to perfection when my floppy scoop betrayed me.

Did I cry? Did I shout “WHY CAN’T ANYTHING EVER BE EASY?”

No. I cleaned up the ocean of coffee with nary a peep, because I finally recognize that I can do hard things now. I do them all the time.

The epiphany came during my final at-home PT evaluation.

Rob, the PT evaluator, kept asking me to do things I was sure I could not do.

“Okay,” he said. “I want you to put your arms out, hands on top of each other, and lean over to touch my hands.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” I said. “I’ll try though.”

Over & over I did the hard thing. I stood up and turned in a circle with my eyes closed. I did stair touches without holding on to either banister. I walked across the room with my cane.

Rob was so proud of me and so was I.

If this stroke has taught me anything it’s that I can do a lot or hard things.

This might be the hardest thing.

I need help. Financially. Right now I’m more than $21,000 in debt due to the stroke & the newly diagnosed diabetes & the diabetic retinopathy & macular edema. I’ve said before I am precariously middle-class and was one medical catastrophe away from financial ruin.

Here I am.

Accepting and asking for help is hard. I’m very much an “I can do it myself” person. I’ve gotten better at this since the stroke. Asking for money is a whole new kind of hard. I thought asking Sister #4 to do my laundry that included dirty underpants was tough. That’s nothing compared to this.

I need help, Darling Ones. My family set up a Go Fund Me to try to ease some of my financial anxiety.

As you know, I’ve been freelancing for the past fourteen years. There’s no FMLA. No sick leave. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid.

Things have been rough.

I lost three clients because of the stroke. One of those projects was slated to bring in $10K by July.

So I need help. If you have the means to throw some dollars my way, I would be ever so grateful. If you don’t have the means, spreading the word of my need is helpful too!

Thank you so much. Y’all really are the best.

Love,
Jodi

P.S. I’m going to be sending out Thank You cards to all donors I can get addresses for. It’s good writing practice & gives me a chance to use my million stamps. Send me your address if you want one. I promise not to stalk you. I can’t even drive yet. Plus, I’m an angry hermit.

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Dear Darling Ones,

It’s my birthday today. I made it to fifty. You better be impressed by my longevity. I’m impressed, and nothing impresses me. It takes a ridiculous amount of hard work to be a human this long. The past two years have made it even harder. Hell, the past two weeks haven’t been a real treat for any of us, have they?

Most years, when I have some money to spare, I buy myself a birthday present, a little treat for continuing to exist.

This year I was going to buy a myself a new mattress, but I forgot. I was also going to steal my friend Karlyn’s idea. For her fiftieth birthday she sent thank you cards to all the important people in her life. It was the kindest, most thoughtful, impressive thing ever. I forgot about that until today too.

I blame this uncharacteristic forgetfulness on the weird feelings about this milestone birthday and not on some sort of early-onset dementia.

Worry not, Darling Ones, I did get myself a gift. I could not let this very special golden anniversary of my life go uncelebrated.

For my birthday I bought myself Frightened Rabbit’s “Midnight Organ Fight” and “Pedestrian Verse” on vinyl. I will not bore you with the trials & tribulations of obtaining these records, mostly because it makes me look super stupid (only because I was super stupid). It is zero exaggeration to say these records saved my life.

I talked about this recently, the importance of music to my life, the holy ritualness of it.*

During the very darkest days of the interminable, lonely winter of 2021 I listened to “Midnight Organ Fight” every night as I was falling asleep. For months. Many, many months in a row. During that winter I went five and a half weeks without seeing anybody. I have never wanted so much to be dead in my entire life. My existence seemed pointless. I felt superfluous to everyone, to earth. Who would even notice? I could slip off this mortal coil without so much as a blip on anyone’s radar.

Two things kept me alive, the good rest I got from “Midnight Organ Fight” lulling me to sleep and my unwillingness to actually do anything to make the dead part happen. I wanted to be dead. I didn’t want to kill myself. This seems like kind of an important distinction to me. Fuck if I know.

Spoiler Alert: I’m not dead. This is not the ghost of Jodi typing to you from the great beyond. I’m alive and kicking and mildly annoyed about how Sister #4 refuses to take her birthdate off Facebook thereby alerting our entire family that is also my birthday. Rude.

I’m pretty pleased at my continued existence, and pretty horrified at how dark it got inside my brain for awhile.

While I was in the midst of the deep dark winter my friend, who introduced me to Frightened Rabbit, said at one point, “I kind of regret telling you about them. I hate that you listen to such sad songs every night all by yourself.” I explained how when all hope is gone, sad songs say so much. If someone else is suffering enough oh to write it down, when every single word makes sense, then it’s easier to have those songs around.**

In the header image for this letter, I chose a lyric from “Heads Roll Off.” While, it’s not my favorite it felt appropriate for this post about my birthday, continuing existence, and whether or not that even matters.

When you reach fifty you realize that your chance to take the world by storm has probably passed, and that’s okay. I’m okay with only making tiny changes to earth, to be someone people only think about once in awhile. When that happens, it is pure joy. I had it happen a few times recently.

A friend shared a video of Orville Peck covering “Can’t Hardly Wait” with me. Another one included me in a tweet by saying “that’s one of Jodi’s pet peeves.”

And most significantly I got a text from my friend Ray out of the blue. He was at a bar we used to frequent in the mid-90s. He said, “Only been here three times in the last 25 years, but I always think of you and I sitting in this booth back in the day.” That text alone was a very excellent birthday gift.

Those are all tiny changes I made.

So that’s the very long story of why I bought myself some excellent records for my birthday. The whole time I was hunting down “Midnight Organ Fight” for a price I was willing to pay (which, admittedly is not very much because ya girl is occasionally broke and all the time cheap) I had a scene in “High Fidelity” running through my head. The one where he says, “Fetish properties are not unlike porn. I’d feel guilty taking their money, if I wasn’t… well… kinda one of them.”

Happy birthday to me,
Jodi

P.S. Last week I reupped the iwilldare.com domain for another five years. You’re welcome, Darling Ones.

 
*It’s my birthday. I can make up words if I want.

 
**I did not actually sing this song to him, but thank you, Elton John.

The post It’s My Birthday & Now I’m 50 appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hi Darling Ones,

When I opened my eyes this morning I had three thoughts almost simultaneously. First, “She Moves in Her Own Way” by The Kooks was stuck in my head. Second, Wendell, the vengeance demon was in need of attention. Third, I would be fifty years old in one month.

There’s nothing like one of those round number birthdays to make you rethink every decision you ever made in your life that brought you to now. Do I have mountains of regret? Yep. Could my sorrow fill an ocean? Also yes.*

I’ve been thinking a lot about the things I did not do: marriage, children, so many men. Okay, in all seriousness I’ve mostly just been thinking about children, specifically not having any and is this a regret?

If you dug through the archives you’d find so many posts about wanting to have children or posts where I freak out about aging and not having a baby. So it seems like it would be something I regret a great deal because it was something I really, really wanted.

Or at least I thought I really wanted them. This is one of those things where I don’t know if my desire for it was performative or not. Did I want to be a mom because I wanted to be a mom or did I want to be a mom because I thought that’s what I was supposed to want? Am I rewriting history by acting as though maybe I didn’t really want kids because I never got around to having them?

And why is it so important to me that I answer that question?

Some of my ambivalence comes from struggling with my own femininity despite not ever fitting into the stereotypes assigned to women. I always though that if I wasn’t petite or pretty enough I wasn’t feminine enough and therefore a failure at womaning. Having a baby would have automatically made me a success as womaning. Right?

The other part of my ambivalence comes from my parentage. Sometimes I’m sure my inherent loneliness comes from being the only one of my kind. The only product of my biological parents’ coupling. The half sister. It’s why I always identify so closely to old-school Superman and the Yeti. This gene pool ends with me, and that’s probably a good thing

Anyway, I love kids it would make sense I would want to have them. I nannied for so much of my life. From Natalia in high school to the twins Nancy and Laura in college Jaycie & Max in the early aughts to The Tibbles in the twenty-teens. I probably spent more summers nannying than I did working any other job.

Much like the romantic fairytales I tell myself about what it would be like in a long-term relationship, I have motherhood fairytales too. In these tales there’s a smaller version of me named Franny, obviously, and she is perfect and wonderful and never unreasonable and would never, not once make me yell, “You’ve sucked all the fun out of this” like I might have said one or fifty times to the niblings when I babysat them.

The fairytales never include not having time to myself to read endlessly or listen to music in the dark or, most importantly, having to work a real job because I could not support a family on my haphazard freelance business.

Nor do they consider what my relationship with the niblings would have been had I my own child. And when I think of that? When I think of not having the time to build a close relationship with Jaycie, Max, or (once upon a time ago) The Tibbles my eyes start to fill with unshed tears. It when I think of the nibs that I realize whether or not I made a conscious choice not to have kids doesn’t matter. What happened was for the best.

So 49 years and 11 months in it’s been determined I have zero regrets because I did everything exactly right the way I was meant to. It’s good to have that cleared up before the big five – oh happens.

Regretfully yours,
Jodi

 
*This bit is stolen from the sELF song “What Are You Thinking?” and I’ve probably used it 49 times on this website.

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