About – Letters from Marseille

After a year of living in France – (Paris) we are now in a new location – Marseille – or to be more specific CASSIS ( pronounced CASS – SEA)  where the SEA is at our door step – actually 10″ from our front door by foot.

This last year has been unbelievable for us, two very adventurous seniors that don’t move all that fast, that have been overwhelmed by the amount of bureaucracy, the amount of French needed in everyday life to get beyond the bureaucrats, the fact that my French was sorely lacking because I was too tired to do a course after my job, the day in and day out of WORKING in another country, the beautiful church we belonged to in Paris, the people we met, the friends we made, the things we SAW and that our little old LEGS actually got us there all of the time, along with trains, metros, buses in all kinds of slamming damp, rainy, cold, snowy, freezing, and sunny weather.  Now the end of that voyage has come to an end for a new one to take its place.  So, we packed up  the most beautiful apartment,  that we were blessed with,  to start once again in the South of France.    HOLY MOLY!!!!!!!  It is definitely NOT a boring life, and if you think you’re too old to try something really different, I beg you – to think again.

This is what I wrote a year ago – in the summer of 2011.  It is now (almost ) the Fall of 2012 and we have had a very interesting year……….

Summer 2011

What do you do when you’ve done it all, but haven’t done anything? — When you think  your life is at an end when your career ends, when you have children that have their OWN children and are very busy and now YOU,  being too much “available” could really be bad for them, (or bad for YOU) as much as you love them to tears…..and what do you do when you basically want to start life over and things about your BODY don’t work as well as they USED to?!?!   What do you do when your basic retirement are the  flying benefits ( where you travel at a huge discount,) but don’t have much money once you GET to that place far far away?  What do you do when your social security is pitiful and  on top of that you have a pitiful savings account and a little 401K now turned IRA?!?!?  Well, you do what I’m doing……or you can just not and read about it instead.  Afterall, if you sit back and just read about what I’m up to you can avoid all the pitfalls, the anxiety, the exasperation and ofcourse all the FUN!   So, I offer you to take a chance and come travel with me through my adventures and attempts to change a senior’s status quo, because for what it’s worth, there is a LOT of staus quo going on out there…………and worse………

Some of this won’t be beautiful, and sometimes it might be downright depressing.  But we’ll discuss that.  It’s a lot like life.  Highs and lows.  Tribulations and goodness.  Failures and successes.   I’m hoping there are more successes than failures, more goodness than trials.  But whatever, it will be an EXPERIENCE and for that, I am so looking forward, no matter what the outcome.  Life is to experience.  If we don’t try and change, then we are regulated to a pretty staid and boring life.  That is not my intention.  So with  a lot of hope, a good deal of gutsy-ness, a faith in God, a willingness to CHANGE, – BUT  very little money, a broken body, and a thumb nail I keep biting out of the nervousness of it all, I, with my husband, move into another dimension, and if you wish, you may join us vicariously – or hilariously.  Whichever, it’s an “Invitation to my (not so)  boring life.”