THE FIRST!

I present to you the first of what I hope to be many, 
"herstories".





Without ado:
     Hello! I got your link from a comment in a HuffPost story, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I am a 58 year old American that has lived in Wisconsin for her whole life. My heritage is a mix of Norwegian, Danish and English. While I grew up Lutheran, I now question the truth and necessity of religion.  I refer to myself as “privately pondering” when asked an affiliation. 

I have been married for 39 years (to the same man!) and have 4 grown children and 5 grandchildren. I’m fortunate enough that all but one of my kids live very close to me, and the other a mere 4 hour drive away.

A high school graduate, I spent the first 20 years of my marriage at home raising my family.  When the youngest was old enough, I went to work in the publishing business.  First at a small hometown newspaper.  I’m now a production manager of 3 magazines at a business-to-business publication company.

Small town Wisconsin is a unique place to grow up and live.  The main source of recreation, besides sporting events, is meeting up with friends at neighborhood establishments.  There is, in my opinion, a high amount of what other people would call binge drinking.  But the people here would not call it that.  I did my share of that, but have slowly decided that I have a drink when I feel like it, don’t feel guilty if I have a few on a rare occasion, but mostly don’t bother. Looking back at growing up in the 70’s, I wish I would have left the booze alone in high school and done pot instead.  Although I don’t smoke it (I have a huge aversion to cigarettes, which has skewed me away from weed.  I would be open to edibles, though!)  I’m a huge proponent of legalization.

My parents were business owners in the small town I grew up in.  Appearances meant everything to them.  I work very hard at not letting that be my guiding force, although it’s easy to slip back into the habits you were raised with.  They were good parents who made sure I had everything I needed, but were not free with affection.  Typical Scandinavian Lutheran…..  I was 21 and not yet a mother when both of my parents died of cancer within 7 weeks of each other.  This many years later, although I’d have loved to have more time with them, I know that it formed my young life and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without it.  And I am very pleased at who I have become and wouldn’t change my life at all right now.  

I have one sister who is 6 years older than me.  She and I are exact opposites, live across the country from each other and barely communicate.  And I’m fine with that.

I look forward to retirement.  I hope that we’ll be able to swing that in a year or two.  My husband is semi-retired now.  We married really young, I wasn’t quite 19.  I was immature for my age, very afraid of rejection, and had never been on my own.  He was very old school in his thinking, and in that way I was a bit bullied into being the “lesser” of the two of us.  As the kids grew, and I became more sure of myself, that changed into a much more mutual respect.  So “in love but easily hurt” changed slowly to a very good and relationship and satisfying life.  It’s for that reason that I hate the throw-away marriages now.  How can you learn to like each other if you don’t wait it out?

My kids and grandkids are my light.  A thought came to me lately that if each one of my grandkids thinks I’m their favorite, I’ll be happy.  I sure didn’t start out planning on 4 kids, but I don’t regret it.  I am, though, very much pro-choice.  I would never be the one to tell someone how they run their life.  In any situation.  I have many gay friends, and love that marriage can happen for them now. That all sounds like I’m a Democrat, and I am, but since my family has always been hunters, I feel the same “pro-choice” way about hunting, and meat eating.  I do vote.  But I’m sad that I seem to have to vote for the least offensive candidate instead of the best.  There are problems on both sides and I wish we could ditch everything and start over.  Without a revolution!

I love my friends.  Most are women.  I’ve had the same best friend since I was 13.  Which is awesome.  I’ve become more of a homebody lately and would rather stay home than be out partying, but I try to find a balance and still do some fun things.  I like to talk.  So I gravitate towards people that can hold an intelligent conversation.  Most people say I’m funny, but I know it’s a very sarcastic, self-depreciating funny that isn’t for everyone.

I try to stay out of drama.  I wear a bracelet that has engraving on the inside “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.  It reminds me to back away!

I think that’s the basics of me. I tried to objectively read this to see what impression it will send out.  I really can’t tell.  The nice thing is being at a point in my life that what other people think isn’t that important to me!  Thanks for listening!

Thank you so much to the woman behind this.  
I will post entries as I receive them, one at a time, once a week, until the situation dictates change.  I will take it and enjoy it as it evolves. 

I will continue to post my 2 cents on this and that.

Have a great week!