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🗓️ MARCH 2025
Chapter 1: The Great Dilemma
The month of July had arrived. Since retiring in March from my position as a flight attendant, I had settled into my country house for the rest of my life.
I was facing a dilemma: after such a well-planned life, I wondered how I was going to adapt to my new life.
It was more than horrifying, despite a well-established plan (travel, writing, gardening). All of it scared me terribly.
Yes, I had very specific goals: to publish all my many books during my retirement. But everything seemed doomed to failure.
First, the eternal refusal to retake my flight attendant exam and the numerous attempts to obtain my airport badge drove me crazy. When one of the resource people meant to help me started yelling at me, I had had enough. That was the last straw. Everything was being done to put obstacles in my way. Since I was still unwell, I simply decided to leave my beautiful career aside and move forward with my numerous books to publish.
I wrote these books at night during long flights, watching passengers sleep between the many water services, freezing in the rear galleys. The only way to forget all of this was to write, to imagine all kinds of lovely stories:
A Christmas series for children that lasted over 13 years: Starlett's Christmas (2013 to 2024).
My book translated from French to English: Air Nation: A Free Ticket Around the World.
I also wrote a blog about flowers for over 20 years, a travel blog, and one about the purchase and countless adventures of my house since 2004.
I wasn't envisioning a boring retirement, but rather a retirement filled with my long-term writings which would now bear fruit.
Alas, the price of publications was more than exorbitant, and I had to fall back on another option to realize my dearest dream.
The idea of having to clean houses, like my mother, for the rest of my life made me lose my mind, and in the true sense of the word.
I was cleaning when, suddenly, I snagged a large bronze bell bought in a market in Germany. I had hooked it with my dusting cloth. My bicycle was in the way. When I received that bell squarely on my head, I stumbled and fell.
The pain was excruciating. I rushed to find ice and lie down on the sofa, glancing in the mirror to see if there was any blood. No, nothing. Then, as I lay down on the sofa, I snagged my angel, The Musician, and it fell to the floor, piercing its knee. Truly, it was not my day!
"Oh, holy cow!"
The pain was agonizing. I turned and randomly picked up my book of 100 Unfinished Songs that I had started several years ago, put aside during COVID. Then, a flash of genius came to me:
I was going to write a hit! I only needed one single song to earn money and be able to publish my books.
Just one song.
So, if I gave myself a precise goal of writing 100 songs, and if I didn't find a buyer, I would move on to something else. But there you have it, publishing children's books requires a lot of color for editing, and it's the same for a gardening book. I wasn't going to publish a Christmas book or a gardening book in black and white! The song really had to be sold at a very good price. A price that would cover my publishing costs.
Therefore, the next day, I had to start finishing my book of 100 songs and hope to sell them.
Was this a way of escaping retirement...?
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