Jill

Jill’s five words are Outgoing, sweet, confident, smart, driven. College-educated, she moved to a small Northeastern city after many years in a big one, lives with a beautiful cat, and works with animals: she has raised money for a sanctuary and now walks and cares for pets while their owners are at work. Animals have unconditional love and are wonderful. She is the one woman of these fifteen who describes a comfortable upbringing, the ability to have nice things, be well educated and cultured. Her presence is a reminder that the women in this study were more varied than any single label. Her diary still shows the edges: what would help her most is Being secure with a steady income, living space and feeling calmer, and money and the pandemic are among the stresses she names.

Her kitchen story begins with a gap: my mother could never cook. Dinner might be Peanut butter and fluff sandwich, candy, attempts at dinner, etc. Then, I took on the cooking role at age 8 when my dad asked if I could figure out how to make a steak. A grandmother who ate everything made her adventurous, taught her healthy comfort foods like turkey chili over brown rice, and introduced her to caviar and chopped liver. She has been diagnosed as a super taster, so flavor matters intensely. Now she cooks everything: an egg-white omelet, a salad with grilled chicken, grilled salmon with vegetables, now and then apple cobbler, and wine with dinner. Her food words are honest about appetite: Cravings, healthy, large portions, shopper, foodie. She works out an hour a day and practices what she calls a holistic lifestyle: alternative medicine first, and attention to how the people in my life make me feel by their energy.

Her defining moments are few, and each carries its lesson. The loss of a first pet: Sad, taught me unconditional love. Breaking off an engagement: Learn strength and power within. A fiftieth birthday with friends of many years: Close bonds just get stronger and you know who is there always. Late in the diary she adds one recent thing: ending a four-year relationship that became toxic and was difficult to do. One reading is that she tells her life as a set of lessons because that is how she makes hard things bearable; another is simply that it is how she likes to tell a story.

Her superpower comes with her own definition: Landing on my feet means to me having the power to overcome obstacles. Taking hard situations and reversing them to what I believe they should be. Under it sit Stress, minor panic attacks, lack of sleep, met by lying in bed with her cat and a book or a movie. Her model is her mother, who faced a brain tumor with a positive outlook. Her 2 a.m. person is a friend of twenty years who once drove 2 hours out of his way to come pick me up so we could talk.

She would not consider going vegan: I don’t want to be so restricted. Of the animals she eats, she makes a rare admission: it is sad, I know. Her Day 5 goal is mindfulness: I tend to not stop when I am full. In a class she learned to open a peanut, look at it and taste it before biting: have to stop rushing through life without experiencing it. Her letter: Know that what seemed to be so important now, won’t be when you read this.