"You Look Mah-velous!"

Or so I hear.  Repeatedly.

It first happened in November of 2013.  I was on my usual doctor schedule in the fall.  Visiting all my specialists for an annual check-up.   This time around, I was with my urologist.

This doctor is a very nice, older gentleman.  He's already retired once and actually missed his work, if you can believe that given how he conducts most examinations.  The usual routine for us once a year is to sit quietly and talk about what has happened to both of us since we last met.  My doctor started the conversation.

"Can I ask you a question?  I have to say you look terrific.  Your skin is very vibrant.  You don't appear to have a single tight muscle in your body.  You look so incredibly healthy.   What's your secret?"

Easy, Doc.   I got fired.

Well, I like the British word better.  Sacked.

It's been way over two years and apparently things are good with me.  And I seem to look...marvelous.

I've had this reaction over and over and over.  Recently, I was at a reunion in Los Angeles of old work colleagues.  I was told the same thing there.  You look at ease.  You look so energized.  One of them said I was quite handsome.  Okay, I wouldn't go that far.  But all the other kudos were gracefully accepted.

The sad thing about all our lives is that we all need to work.  Well, there are plenty who choose not to and I am frankly sick and tired of supporting them.  But, the sheer requirement of being someplace day in and day out can really drain the vibrancy out of your life.  Especially if it's a place which has grown detestable as my last engagement had become.   A large level of impersonal upper management had descended like locusts.  A decent place was now Hell with air conditioning.

Over the past two years, while I was healing and seeking out the next journey of life, I made several discoveries.  There are few people from the last organization that I wanted to be in touch with.  I speak to several co-workers one or two times a week.  There are others that I see from time to time for lunch.   Mostly, there are folks that I have no interest in maintaining a relationship with.  It's funny how life and your place in it sets up those choices.   

Things are good.  I am an entrepreneur for now.  Dating several clients until one of them proposes marriage.  Or maybe, like Oprah and Stedman, we'll go on and on as "a couple."  The people I have chosen to be in business with want to be in business with me.   They are all nice people who totally respect me as much as I respect them.  It's fun to be wanted.

More importantly, I am still a writer and things are a-happening.  More on this in another chapter.

I didn't realize how toxic my world had become.  After the cleanse, I feel good.  I am at ease.

And then, as regular readers know, I got sick with an inflamed liver.   This made me change my eating choices and, as a result...

I lose thirty pounds.   Which gets even more positive reactions.

"You look great."

Thank you.

And, apparently, I look mah-velous.

I'm also having more fun than I ever have had in a long while.   One more time.  That will be the subject on another day.

Dinner last night:  Chef's salad.