How Grace and Frankie Changed My Life

4/3/2019

I first saw the show Grace and Frankie while visiting a friend about a year and a half ago. She lives up in the mountains of Colorado and uses Netflix for her TV service, and she invited me to watch the first episode of the series with her because she'd liked it. I remember thinking, “I like this show. It's an interesting premise. I’m going to watch it.”

I returned home and did watch one or two episodes. But then I fell into the rhythm of my life (which for me doesn’t include a ton of TV) and it dropped off my radar.

Not long after I'd lost my job earlier this year, when my world was in absolute upheaval and I didn't know what to do with myself, I decided to watch an episode or two as a way to escape reality. That little trickle turned into binge watching, which I don't do, and I’m now almost done with the present season (no spoilers, I’m not done yet!).

It sounds silly, but this is a perfect example of how the universe brings you the things you need at just the right time. Don't worry, I'll explain.

For those who are unfamiliar, Grace and Frankie (starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin) is the story of two women whose husbands fall in love with each other, get married late in life, and leave the wives to pick up the pieces. Grace is the business mogul who thrives on structure and built a successful company before she retired. Frankie is the artist and free spirit who paints, is a vegetarian, and smokes some pot from time to time.

I had a moment one day while watching that hit me so hard that it changed my life: I realized that I'm Frankie (minus the pot) and I’d been trying to live in a Grace world.

Wow. It's really that simple.

I’ve never enjoyed the rigidity of corporate life and I never wanted to arrive there. In fact, I’ve never felt quite right at any job where I’ve had to sit in a cubicle or talk about profits or sales or pushing out the latest release of software. I’ve had a persistent discontentment in all of my jobs. Sometimes not at first, but I assume it's because the hope of a new role being better and finally making me happy drowned it out.

Over 15+ years the melancholy always came, in every job, like clockwork. I’d thought something was just wrong with me. Why does no job make me happy?

I understand now that it's because I'm a Frankie. I'm an artist and a free spirit. I want to live life my way, I want to structure my day my way, I want to express myself and do things that are meaningful to me and meaningful to humanity. I want to write about things that matter to me and not about drywall products or computer software or dental surgery.

I’ve been living an absolutely inauthentic life since I left college and that's why I've felt so off kilter for so long. But I just couldn't find a way out.

So I’ve started trying to make a way out now, because it feels like it's finally my time. This website and blog is part of that, as is the hard work I’ve been doing on my book for the past few weeks.

I knew when my entire life blew up earlier this year and my social media engagement exploded last month that something had shifted for me. Something big was happening. Something up there in the sky was pushing me forward down here. Get out of the wrong life, it’s been saying to me. There is no more time to push aside the life you’re meant to live. Get on it. Get started. NOW.

Ok universe, I got the message. And thanks a bunch for sending me clarity through a TV show.

It's funny how much you can see when you really look.

3 Comments

Mike Welch

5/22/2019 09:14:59 am

I am the same Mike Welch you recently connected with on LinkedIn and during today, late afternoon and whilst working on a project in my new world/working life I clicked on your website link and arrived here.
Reference Grace & Frankie, watch the entire series to date . It took a while to grow on me but my wife was a fan from the start, now I miss it somewhat.
Frankie definitely smoked a lot of pot and Grace drank a lot of Martinis. It is a program of great hope despite their mishaps and relatives.
I wish you well as you reposition your life in a way that is most satisfying to you which undoubtedly will bring out the best in you.
Noting you wanted to reach out, potentially geographically and culturally speaking happy to be one of those to whom you might do so. I do it all the time as I am fascinated by different cultures and the way they can have a completely different yet rational perspective on sorts of issues. M

Elizabeth C. Haynes

5/22/2019 02:54:10 pm

Thanks for the comment, Mike! And thanks for reading and dropping by. :)

Thomas Kraus link

5/24/2019 02:28:57 pm

Elizabeth C. Haynes

I am going to start writing a journal for my self help mental health therapy. All my life I felt invisible and I shunned anything that would require me becoming more visible. But I have been concerned about the national debt since 1981 when Ronald Reagan was the first President in my lifetime to acknowledge the national debt is a real problem that needs to be addressed.

I have also concerned with global warming since the first celebration of Earth Day in the 1970's though specifically which year as I write I cannot remember.I will find out later after offering you my encouragement.

I believe global warming is real but believe also most proponents of global warming have an agenda for supporting the global warming cause and taxing carbon that is not motivated by a sincere desire to do something to address climate change but seek to be able to go on taxing and spending and using the cause of global warming to justify ever higher taxes.

Never once have I heard that Carbon taxes would be used to plant more trees which would be the only legitimate reason for taxing carbon except global warming is not the cause of global warming but a product or symptom of global warming.

You see the real cause of global warming is that there are not enough trees to clean carbon from the air by stripping it from CO2 and Carbonmonoxide.

300 years ago at the dawn of the industrial revolution the Earth is estimated to have had 5.4 trillion trees and other plants growing on the Earth's surface and today we have only 3 trillion trees growing on the Earth's surface or 40% less trees than 300 year ago.

Returning to 300 years ago, the Earth was populated "only" by 700 million Earthlings and animals in the wild and whatever domesticated animals lived on farms. Today the human population is 10.71 times larger than it was 300 years ago.

It is the combination of a smaller population of plant life especially trees and a much larger population of humans that cause global warming.

To understand global warming you need to understand the mere elements of Earth Science especially the Carbon/Oxygen exchange cycle between Earth' s two carbon based life forms those that are anaerobic and breathe in carbon and breathe out oxygen and water vapor and those that are aerobic and breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

Trees and other plants serve three function relevant to the issue of global warming. They act as the Earth's Air conditioners stripping carbon from the air we breathe when there are sufficient number of plant life to animal life or sufficient number of anaerobic lifeforms to aerobic lifeforms to clean the air.

The second purpose of plant life is to act as the humidifiers of the planet releasing water vapor and oxygen into the atmosphere where in the upper atmosphere molecules of oxygen separated from carbon in carbon dioxide combine with single atoms of oxygen separated from Carbonmonoxide and single atoms of oxygen separated from hydrogen in water recombine creating an 3 atom oxygen molecule which is called ozone which forms the ozone layer which protects the Earth's surface from interstellar radiation .

The third relevant thing all plant life on Earth do relevant to global warming is act as thermostats
regulating the temperature of the planet by building up a thicker layer of oxone to keep interstellar radiation from over heating the Earths surface.

The real threat of global warming is not rising carbon emissions but increased interstellar radiation reaching the Earth's surface as the thinning ozone layer becomes a less effective barrier to the radiation. Planting a trillion trees by mid century combined with recycling wood from furniture and building materials could significantly reduce global warming.

In short global warming is caused by a deficit of trees and the nations of the world have mismanaged their forests in similar fashion as they mismanaged their bugets continuously running deficits.

Sincerely

Thomas Kraus
tjk271@yahoo.com
Tkraus1961@gmail.com
929-624-5532

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