Published September 30, 2024

If you set a goal to post every day, you can end up sharing something no one needs to see. I experienced this sometimes as a reporter. I had to churn out copy daily, sometimes two or three stories a day. You have to feed the beast.

I’ve almost never celebrated or marked the last day of being a certain age. Perhaps when I was 17, about to turn 18? Maybe I’ll do that today.

I have a hair appointment. I’ll take stock of things, a day before 1) a birthday, 2) a birthday-month and 3) a coming-out-anniversary session with my therapist. I love her, and we will have lots to talk about.

When historian and Letters from an American newsletter author Heather Cox Richardson needs a day of rest, she posts a photo and a brief note. Let this be a short letter from me. This American will do laundry and plenty of thinking and then get her hair done and show it off before going to bed and turning older overnight.

You can see by the calendar collage that we are back where we started 29 days ago, looking at September, with the 30th visible near the encouragement to house hope. That 30 looks different now than it did when it was off in the future. That’s small potatoes compared to the number I’ll think about today and tomorrow. It’s an age that has waited many years for me. We will team up when my favorite month arrives. I wonder what it has in store for me.

Peace. Sending love,

CarlyJ

The photo at the top, which I used in the September collage, is on the wall at one of my clinics in Portland. I don’t know the photographer’s name but will try to find out.