How two boomers keep the spirit alive

How to keep the spirit alive? This baby boomer knows how. Deby Hogue and her husband Chuck moved almost a decade ago from Los Angeles to Costa Rica. A sea-change in many ways. And it’s working.

Another year has passed for Chuck and me and it’s our forty-third anniversary. I began to reflect and look for meaning. Well, first off I had to look up what “meaning” really means, (what is intended to be, or actually is, expressed or indicated, signification). So I guess what will be will be, and what has been was meant to be. I know, that might not help, but you’re not alone because it didn’t help me at all.

While we were raising children years ago and living our life, we never tried to find meaning, we just did what we thought we should do, and got on with our lives. Chuck worked all day and I was a stay-at-home mom for most of our lives. I got the kids off to school while Chuck made the money. When he got home from work, we all sat down together for a meal at the dinner table. I know, old-fashioned, right?

Now grown, our sons say they loved that time together at that small kitchen table. I just thought that was the thing to do. Family time, TV off, and just talk to each other. The great thing is, we ending up having a wonderful and loving life without knowing there was a meaning to it all.

I am wondering if we even made a conscious decision about how we would raise our children, or how could we make this relationship work. We just moved forward with the bad and the good and time passed as it does for us all. So now, at almost 64-years-old, I find no “meaning,” just happiness and still lots of love after all these years. I am happy and content with what we have at this time of our lives.

So on Friday nights when Chuck breaks out the ice cold Fireball (it’s Cinnamon Whiskey) and puts it in a shot glass, one for me and one for him, we toast to another Friday. I try to say nothing about the taste and just go with the flow of the fact that he loves it and I don’t.

Wow! I just found the meaning of it all. Don’t sweat the small stuff, just let love live.

Who cares if the Fireball tastes bad, it’s just one small shot and it makes him so happy to be alive and able to celebrate another Fireball Friday together. We are living in Costa Rica and enjoying the time we have left. But I can’t for the life of me see myself throwing back a Fireball Whiskey shot at 88-years-old.

But then again, why not? But I think maybe it will be something else, like Tequila. Forty-three years has just flown by. I think Chuck and I have a few more adventures left in us.