Saturday, March 23, 2019

"Making Change"




            Over the last few months, several older friends unexpectedly fell into life changes due to medical issues. Nothing life threatening, but still a diagnosis that meant change must come sooner, rather than later, into their routines.
            One of the main changes dealt with whether or not they could continue to work. A necessary knee or hip replacement turned into hours of physical therapy after the surgery. For a couple of friends, the promised “cure” from the procedure didn’t result in anything more than a little less pain. Their range of motion remained less. Plus, no one talked about the fact that after a certain age one’s overall stamina and energy don’t return to the same pre-surgery level. The promise that things would be “as good as new” simply didn’t hold up. For these friends, a loss of income coupled with extraordinarily high medical bills meant they now ride on a roller coaster of anxiety.
            For me, I started counting my blessings daily. During the spring semester last year, the plague (aka allergies) knocked me down for the count. By the long, lazy days of summer, I resolved to hedge myself against another rough spring by joining my son on his lifestyle change. I dropped flour from my diet. No bread. No cereal. No cookies. No cakes. No pastas. No battered or gravy laden meats. In the process of avoiding flour, I pulled away from most processed and preserved foods. This dramatic diet change resulted in more energy. I worked more consecutive days this fall and winter than I have at any other time in the past. Was this change easy? No. Was this change necessary? Definitely.
            As I viewed friends grappling with health issues that led to their ability to work, I began wondering what would happen if I could no longer work at my post-retirement job.  What could I do to generate income if I couldn’t jump into a car and head out? I recently sat back and reflected on the things I love to do—my writing and photography topped the list. In what way could I combine these two pleasures into generating a little income that would shift me away from a total dependence upon my current occupation? My son, always a creative soul, suggested a few days ago that I could use my photography, combined with my love of words and phrases, to generated unique t-shirt designs that I could sell online.
            Today, I began another change in my life! I opened an online store called Ms. Liz Designs. (https://teespring.com/stores/ms-liz-designs)
            With my blog, I hope to share the tales of my adventures as I discover the ins-n-outs stepping out of my comfort zone and into new possibilities.

Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman




              
             


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