One of the drawbacks of being single I've discovered are the times when I'm sick. I miss my ex-husband in those moments when I'm shivering, covered in sick sweat, head pounding and body aching, and all I want is for someone to bring me a cup of tea. Or to not have to crawl to the kitchen to make myself something to eat. For someone to put a cool hand against my forehead and ask if there's anything that I need.

It's rather pathetic, in those moments, to miss someone who hurt me so badly. He also wasn't the most sympathetic when I was sick, either. During the course of our marriage, I wasn't sick very often so he didn't have much practice. I didn't want to bother him or feel like a burden either, so I tried to limit my requests to simple things, like a Sprite when he was going to the store or soup. He always delivered those, but seemed to miss on the connection of the loving part, of being able to just keep a cool hand on my forehead or rub my back.

The year before our marriage fell apart, my ex-husband was diagnosed with pneumonia. Fortunately, he was not hospitalized, but he was quarantined for 48 hours and then stayed home from work for the next week, laying on the couch, bouncing back and forth from feeling decent to covered in sweat. I did my best to make sure that I kept him comfortable since that was the first time he had been truly sick in the course of our 15 years together. I made sure he had enough to drink, all his favorite beverages and snacks on hand, and rubbed his feet or back when it seemed like he needed it. We had to postpone a trip to visit his parents in Arizona, and I knew he was disappointed, so I tried not to show relief that we weren't going.

But the worst part of his illness -- the part that made me feel guilty because it made me so anxious -- was that I had to do all the cooking during that time period. Our relationship always had a careful balance in the kitchen: he did all the cooking, and I did all the cleaning after. Not because I was incapable of cooking, but because I didn't have the patience for it, and he was a far superior cook. I was always in awe of how he could whip up a scrumptious dish without a recipe and just a few ingredients at hand. I had never boiled an egg.

The first night after he was diagnosed with pneumonia and after he called his parents to let them know we weren't able to come visit that weekend, I asked him what he wanted for dinner. Knowing that we both knew I was a mediocre cook at best, I was expecting him to request something simple, like tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. (He was a pescatarian, who rarely ate the fish part of being a pescatarian.) However, when asked, he looked at me with a straight face and said "How about Pad Thai?" At some point, we had acquired a Thai cookbook, which I don't think either of us had ever opened. I thought he was joking but, when he opened the cookbook and pointed to the recipe, I knew he was serious. With a sigh and a feeling of absolute panic, I took a photo of the recipe and headed to the grocery store to buy the ingredients, many of which I had never heard before. (For example, I ended up spending 45 minutes in the grocery store looking for the bean sprouts and, as I was nearing tears and ready to give up, found them in a plastic bag with tongs in the produce aisle.) I ended up making the Pad Thai -- with tofu, for his sake. It was actually decent, and my ex was mildly complimentary toward it, which was good for him.

The next few days he insisted that I make all sorts of dishes that he knew I had never made before. He leaned against the counter in the kitchen and walked me through making vegetarian chili; I had never made chili, let alone cooked with soy crumble before. Stir fry with rice and vegetables; baked salmon and rosemary seasoned potatoes; some other crazy meal after crazy meal. Each meal I panicked and had extreme anxiety over, wanting to make sure that it met his approval. Finally I asked him why he was asking me to make such complicated meals, thinking that it was maybe an excuse to hang out in the kitchen with me and talk since he was home alone all day without anyone else to talk to while he was sick. He just laughed and said, "Because I wanted to see if you could."

During the last ten months of our marriage, when things were falling apart and he was barely speaking to me, he stopped cooking. I did all of the cooking during that time period, and I discovered that I could do it independently, that I enjoyed it as well -- other than the underlining reason of why I was doing all the cooking. I scoured Allrecipes.com, clipped recipes from magazines, flipped through that damn Thai cookbook, and tried them. I learned how to cook soy crumble, tofu, and all the vegetarian "meat" substitutes. Each dish was an elaborate way to prove my love to my ex, to show him that I was capable of creating something from scratch just for him. It was one of those illogical, desperate attempts that I made during that time to show him that I was worthy of his love.

In the end, I had a collection of recipes that I took with me when I moved out and filed for divorce. It also made me a good cook, a skill that I've been able to use for myself, friends, family, and those I have dated since my divorce. And for the people I've made the Pad Thai recipe for, they all given me rave reviews.

Watching the 2018 Winter Olympics is mind blowing to me. Seeing such extreme athletes who dedicate their lives to training for sports that are incredibly taxing on their bodies, psyches, and livelihoods. The downhill skiers who twist and turn to maneuver their skis 75 miles per hour down a snow covered mountain; ice skaters jump triple sow cows and pull their feet backwards so that it touches the back of their heads while spinning like tops; skeleton racers hurtling head first 100 miles per hour down a curvy, ice covered track.

Seeing so many personal triumphs and wins while simultaneously witnessing devastating falls and spills is breathtaking, awe inducing, and inspiring. The Olympics is a reminder of how people come together to root for others and share heartbreaks and triumphs without having met that person. All the demographics fade away as we anxiously watch and hope that that athlete completes his or her event flawlessly and to the best of his or her ability.

It's incredible to watch. And it makes my knees hurt. This is a new reaction for me watching the Olympics. Maybe that's a sign that I'm old now. Because I have the awe and the appreciation for the skills and talents that these athletes have, but now all I can think is: "My body would never recover from bending that way." or "Dear sweet God, if he crashes, he's going to break his neck." It reinforces the notion that I am not a thrill seeker, that I have a keen awareness of my own mortality, and I know that I am so uncoordinated that to attempt any of these winter sports -- even in a safely controlled environment where I might be wearing pads and held upright in a safety harness -- would end in disaster. But obviously this is why these trained athletes are at the Olympics, and I'm watching from the warm and safe position on my couch...

I think I'm having a midlife crisis.

According to Wikipedia's definition, I'm a little on the young side with a midlife crisis typically occurring between the ages of 45 to 64. In 12 days, I turn 38. So, technically, I'm just a few years early. Which makes sense...I've always been told that I'm mature for my age. Or incredibly juvenile.

A midlife crisis for a woman on average can range from two to five years.

WHAT THE FUCK, Wikipedia?

Two to five years of reflecting on my own mortality, questioning where I am at life and what I have (or have not) accomplished, and then trying to self correct or spiral into morning depending on my personality inclinations? This average timeline blows my mind. How sad. And I am so fucked.

When I recently mentioned to a good friend who is the same age as me that I thought I was embarking on a premature midlife crisis, she said that she likes to think that there's not just one midlife crisis, but potentially a spattering of life crises: moments across our lives when triggers cause us to reflect on our lives. (This theory might likely be a variation of a "mid-life stressor".) Otherwise, when else do we really pause to reflect on where we're at in life, where we have been, and where we are going?

So I'm going to continue to reflect as to how I got to this point in my life and where my future path will take me: midlife crisis, life crisis, or midlife stressor. I also need to stop reading such depressing entries on Wikipedia...

I've always wanted to be a writer. The type of writer that tells a riveting story, that captures the attention of the reader, draws the reader in, and then change's that person's perspective of life...even if just for a fleeting moment.

But I lack discipline and the self-motivation to write on a regular basis and, therefore, ever be a "successful" writer. So many excuses from life. Busy with work, busy with family and friends, too many books out there to read on my own, too many other activities to distract me. Too busy to try to see whether I could succeed or fail.

It's been three years since my last blog post, and there's no excuse other than a lack of effort. In three years, I've experienced the death of a parent, the unraveling of my marriage, divorce, restarting my world over, watching my mother restart her world, trying to date for the first time in 16 years and before a time of social media and dating apps, losing friends and gaining friends, going through my first post-divorce relationship breakup, and dating until I couldn't feel any more and could care less about whether I find someone new.

I decided to start writing again for one reason only: I've been feeling like a hypocrite. Last week, I attended a middle school "Career Jumping Day". Essentially, a speed dating-esque event where groups of three to four eight graders sat at a table for eight minutes with an adult, talking to the adult about what his or her job is and asking questions around what specifically the adult's career entailed. At the table to my right was a police officer; at the table to the left was a med student. Across from me was a gentleman whose job it is to train service dogs...and he brought a beautiful black lab with him. The room was filled with firefighters, police officers, med students or doctors, lawyers, and who knows what else. Then there was me, a manager of a team of technical writers at a computer software company. I can speak to my job for more than eight minutes and keep the time filled, but to make it sound exciting and interesting to a group of teenagers was a little bit of a struggle, especially considering the professionals I was surrounded by.

While I did my best to sound interesting and hip to a group of kids who I realized I could be a parent to and then some, I thought my advice and answers to their questions were good. I didn't quite pant myself on the back, but I came close. When I tried to fill some of the lulled conversation with a particularly shy group of students, I asked them if any of them knew what they wanted to do when they graduated from high school. They all said no, which surprised me. Even at a young age, I knew I was going to have a job that involved writing. Granted, no child likely ever said "I want to be a technical writer when I grow up!", but I knew words, sentence structure, and grammar were going to play a key role in my future.

I tried a different tactic by asking them what they were interested in. One boy shrugged and said, "Video games." To which I said, "You can build a career off of that. Find something that you are passionate about, and you can find numerous career paths that involve some form of your interests and passions. And that's how you'll more than likely find yourself happy in whatever career you choose."

It seemed like sound advice. After all, that's an indirect route to how I found my career, which I love. I never thought I would be a technical writer - hell, I didn't even know technical writing was a career - but here I am, managing and technical writing away. And it suits me. But I also realized that I have moved away from the writing portion of my role and more on the people management and strategy side of things. Therefore, where is my writing?

So I came back to my blog today. I had to reset my password and fiddle with my browser cookies to come back, but here I am. Likely for random, infrequent intervals of blogging, but I returned to the roots of what I love and what directed me into the career that I have. Thank you to those middle schoolers for reminding me about what I want to be when I grow up.