musings, life lessons & poetry from Theresa Jarosz Alberti

Category: Life Lessons (Page 2 of 12)

Lessons From the Lake

It starts with an email: “I’m thinking about swimming tomorrow, anyone else?” More emails float in as the women in my water aerobics group weigh in on air temperature, how cold the lake might be, wind factor, how sunny it is, algae reports, our schedules. Usually one crazy voice saying “I’m going!” is enough to tempt a few others to join. 

This year, we are bolder, more daring, willing to tolerate some not-quite-ideal conditions to continue our swimming and water aerobics into autumn. We’ve been eager and giddy in the face of pushing past our goal date of Sept 15 (as I wrote about in part 1, The Mermaids of Lake Nokomis). We crank up the heat in the car on the way home after we emerge shivering from the water, and some have brought fluffy robes to wear afterwards.  Continue reading

I Love You

Here we are, Valentine’s Day 2021. This might be a day of sweetness for you: romance or cozy love, chocolate and flowers. It might be deflating and speak of “lack” for you, leave you feeling sad or lonely. Perhaps you scoff at this commercialized Hallmark holiday, or it isn’t on your radar at all.

I love you.

We are fellow humans on this rickety rollercoaster of Life together. We have more in common than we think. Despite our differences, we all bleed, laugh, grieve, wonder, die. We all stumbled our way through 2020 and are figuring out how to live in this new (hopefully better) year. Continue reading

Exciting News … and Vulnerability

Have you ever had such a swirl of emotions that you don’t know how to take the next step, or what to say? That’s where I find myself now, contradictory feelings battling it out. I’m excited and afraid, proud and full of doubt, brave one minute and whimpering the next. I’m standing on the diving board, stalling, and the time has come to jump.

I’ll tell you the easy and exciting part first. I have spent my pandemic so far writing a book, and I’m putting it out into the world today.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to try publishing a book on Kindle Direct and see what that’s like. Self-publishing has always appealed to me, and I know that authors earn a 70% royalty on books in a certain price point in Kindle. I’m so curious about the whole process– promoting and selling my book, learning the ins and outs of how to do that well, how to design the cover and format the book. I’m very proud of myself for working towards this goal, step by step, and now it is here! I am putting the book up for pre-sale orders today.

And now comes the vulnerability part. This is a book I have felt compelled to write, but the subject matter is not an easy topic for me to talk about. I believe it’s important and needs to be written about. Continue reading

Divorce Lesson 7, Round 2

Life has a way of circling around, doesn’t it?  The Indigo Girls have a line in their song Watershed that goes

“Ending up where I started again 
makes me want to stand still.”

On January 10, 2015, I was in a very similar place to where I am now. Then, it was facing divorce after being married to Bob for 25 years. Today, it is facing divorce after 31 years. Obviously, the divorce six years ago didn’t happen; we had a turn-about and changed our relationship and stayed together. After some really difficult times in the last few years, we are now getting the divorce. There will be no turn-about this time. The heartbreak and grief I was feeling 6 years ago have been back in full force this past year for me, as well as facing the changes that come with ending a marriage. It is a hard place to be.

In January 2015, Bob had just moved out, and I dealt with the heartbreak by throwing myself a party. It’s not that I was feeling jolly and wanted to celebrate. I needed my friends around me, and I needed something to look forward to. So I planned an unusual party, one where I had my guests paint on my walls and paint on ME. It really helped me so much, in so many ways. Continue reading

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