They lined up to tell me
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I gave a presentation on May 5th to 85 people in an independent living community. I told them about the $4,500 I lost to a scammer. I told them the red flags I missed. I told them what I know now that I didn't know then. And then it was over. Except it wasn't. People came up to me afterward. Not to say nice things about the talk. To tell me their stories. They waited in line to do it. Some of them had been holding something for a long time. A suspicious phone call they were embarrassed about. A moment they almost fell for something and never told anyone. A loss they hadn't talked about with their family. And they chose me to tell it to. I tried to be fully present with each person. It was harder than I expected. Because I could see the ones still waiting, and I wanted them to know they mattered too. That I wasn't going anywhere. That their turn was coming. After it was over, I got an email from the Executive Director. She told me my approach was unlike others she had seen. That I spoke their language. That I used real life examples. She said they were still talking about it. I didn't know what to do with that. I still don't, completely. And then something else happened that I'm still sitting with. A woman who investigates fraud for Adult Protective Services sought me out. She wanted to talk. Not because she needed help. Because she recognized something in what I was doing and wanted to connect. When someone who works in that world — who sees the worst of what happens to people — stops to find you in a crowd, you pay attention. I've been thinking about all of it ever since. Not the presentation itself. The line of people waiting. The ED's email. The investigator who walked toward me. What it means when people trust you with something they've been carrying quietly. I didn't walk into that room expecting any of it. I walked in with a story I survived. And somehow that was enough. With love, Jane P.S. Jaycee came with me that day. She waited in her car seat while I was inside. When I got back to the car she was ready to hear all about it. She's a very good listener.
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The Jane & Jaycee Project
Practical wisdom for women starting over.
There is a workshop I have been building called Before It Happens. The name says everything about what I wish someone had done for me. Before the money was gone.Before I stopped trusting my own instincts.Before I couldn't hear the people who loved me anymore.The idea is simple.Reach people before the hard thing hits.Give them something to hold onto before they need it.But the more I sit with it, the more I think the workshop is only part of the story.Because here is what I know now.The thing...
Hi friend, I got the news at work. An email I'd been waiting on for a long time, sitting right there in my inbox. I read it once. Then again, slower. It was good news. The kind you brace for so long that when it finally comes, you're not quite sure what to do with your hands. I could have gone home. I could have gone to our usual park, where I throw golf balls for Jaycee until my arm gives out. But none of that felt right for this. So I did something different. I picked a trail near me. Well...
Hi friend, This is where you'll usually find me lately. First cup of coffee, still warm in my hands. Maybe ten minutes after my feet hit the floor. Jaycee curled up beside me on the recliner, not quite ready to start her day either. And lately, before anything else, I open a little app called Yuno and let it teach me something. This week it taught me that the Vikings reached America. In longboats. About five hundred years before Columbus. Long before the story I was handed in school. I sat...