Coffee for the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

This very early morning in the very early spring I am enjoy a cup of coffee on the first day of the rest of my life.  Today is my first day as the retired editor of Heart of Ohio Magazine.  It’s a day I’ve known was coming for some time, but still I sit here sipping coffee wondering what comes next.

It’s not as if this is the first time I’ve gone thru this coffee ritual.  I remember sipping a cup of coffee with my new husband at our first breakfast together.   We were on our honeymoon; this was the first day of our married life.  The future seemed to open before us…. now that was one great cup of coffee.

A few years later I sat propped up in a hospital bed having a cup of coffee after our son had been born very late the night before.  The coffee was, well, hospital coffee.  But this was the first day of the rest of my life as a new mother and I looked at the future through the filter of my inexperience.   It was a terrifying and wonderful future that stretched out ahead of me.

Peering at the future over the rim of a coffee cup brings back so many times when the piping hot liquid anchored me.  The first morning after the death of a dear friend or family member…the first morning in the kitchen of a new home…and the nights when sleep was impossible; the only thing allowing the early morning to arrive a bottomless cup of coffee.

My first cup of coffee the morning after my retirement party from a long broadcast career stands out because I wasn’t sure this “retirement” thing was for me.   As it turned out I was right, no amount of coffee could change the fact that I needed something to do.  That’s when, over a cup of coffee, my friend Diane Brown and I put our heads together to bring her idea of a local magazine to fruition.  With no experience in producing a magazine she went from printer to publisher and I went from retired broadcaster to editor.   It turned out to be a great experience that bonded our friendship and introduced us to so many interesting places and people that the nine years have passed in the blink of an eye.

Now Great Lakes Publishing (Ohio Magazine, Cleveland Magazine, etc.) is going to take Heart of Ohio Magazine to a new level.  Diane Brown will continue to supply our community with printing and graphics services, just as she has for so many years at Sun Graphics.  I’ve chosen to continue to look for stories to write for Heart, but I will no longer be editor.  Diane Brown and I will serve on an advisory board meeting periodically to help maintain the local flavor and interest of Heart of Ohio Magazine.   

And so, this cup of coffee is the first cup of coffee as I begin this new chapter of my life.  What comes next?  I haven’t a clue.  But, based on so many “first cups” over the years I can’t wait to find out. 

Relax and have a cup of coffee…. the best is yet to be. 

                                                           Life is Good