WashingTina

Last week the Powerball soared to nearly $600 million.  As is often the case when it gets to that point, I bought a ticket.  I didn't win.  Well, I didn't win the jackpot . . . but I did win $4.  I doubled my money.  And that's not nothing.  That got me thinking about luck and winning and how often we end up ahead, and don't really notice it because we're too busy worrying about what we didn't win. Take for instance the line of women from whom I come. My mother's mother grew up in a working-class Italian family in the '30s and '40s in D.C.  When she was in high school, there were sororities that all the girls joined.  Unless you were Italian -- you weren't allowed to join, because of who you were.  A lesser woman might've admitted defeat and sat at home feeling sorry for herself.  Not my grandmother.  She and her friends started their own sorority. They continued to meet regularly for more than 60 years -- in fact, until she died...

I'm not a risk taker. I follow rules, take the road most taken, and generally do what is expected of me.  And lately all of that rule following has made me pretty . . . uncomfortable.  I'm mid-career, mid-stride, nearly mid-life.  And frankly, I'm quite tired of being mid-anything.  I'm ready to shake things up, make a change, move on to whatever's next. Trouble is, I have no idea what's next.  You're probably thinking, "Duh, WashingTina, nobody knows what's next. That's the whole point, isn't it?"  I don't do so well with not knowing what's next.  I'm a planner.  I like to know what's for dinner by breakfast.  I like to know what I'm doing on Saturday by Monday afternoon.  I like to know where my next paycheck is coming from, how many vacation days I've earned, and the exact number of pennies in my bank account.  Not very exciting. I was at an event recently focused around creativity.  Despite my straight an...